ZtitM^ 


University  of  California  •  Berkeley 

From  the  Collection  of 
Joseph  Z.  Todd 

Gift  of 
Hatherly  B.  Todd 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 


Vol.  XIII 


VIRGINIBUS  PUERISQUE 
MEMORIES  AND  PORTRAITS 


*THE  TRAVELS  and 
ESSAYS  OF  ROBERT 
LOUIS    STEVENSON 


VrIRGINIBUS  PUERISQUE 
ft  MEMORIES  AND  POR- 
TRAITS    *      ft      %      %      ft 


^PUBLISHED  IN 

NEW  YORK  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S 
SONS     *     *      1907     t 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


VIRGINIBUS    PUERISQUE   AND    OTHER 
PAPERS 3 

MEMORIES  AND  PORTRAITS    ....     177 


My  dear  William  Ernest  Henley, 

We  are  all  busy  in  this  world  building  Towers  of  Babel ;  and  the 
child  of  our  imaginations  is  always  a  changeling  when  it  comes  from 
nurse.  This  is  not  only  true  in  the  greatest,  as  of  wars  and  folios,  but 
in  the  least  also,  like  the  trifling  volume  in  your  hand.  Thus  1  began 
to  write  these  papers  with  a  definite  end :  I  was  to  be  the  Advocatm, 
not  I  hope  Diaboli,  but  Juventutis;  I  was  to  state  temperately  the  be- 
liefs of  youth  as  opposed  to  the  contentions  of  age;  to  go  over  all  the 
field  where  the  two  differ,  and  produce  at  last  a  little  volume  of  special 
pleadings  which  1  might  call,  without  misnomer,  Life  at  Twenty-five. 
But  times  kept  changing,  and  I  shared  in  the  change.  I  clung  hard  to 
that  entrancing  age;  but,  with  the  best  will,  no  man  can  be  twenty-five 
for  ever.  The  old,  ruddy  convictions  deserted  me,  and,  along  with 
them,  the  style  that  fits  their  presentation  and  defence.  1  saw,  and  in- 
deed my  friends  informed  me,  that  the  game  was  up.  A  good  part  of 
the  volume  would  answer  to  the  long-projected  title;  but  the  shadows 
of  the  prison-house  are  on  the  rest. 

It  is  good  to  have  been  young  in  youth  and,  as  years  go  on,  to 
grow  older.  Many  are  already  old  before  they  are  through  their  teens; 
but  to  travel  deliberately  through  one's  ages  is  to  get  the  heart  out  of  a 
liberal  education.  Times  change,  opinions  vary  to  their  opposite,  and 
still  this  world  appears  a  brave  gymnasium,  full  of  sea-bathing,  and 
horse  exercise,  and  bracing,  manly  virtues;  and  what  can  be  more  en- 
couraging than  to  find  the  friend  who  was  welcome  at  one  age,  still 
welcome  at  another?  Our  affections  and  beliefs  are  wiser  than  we;  the 
best  that  is  in  us  is  better  than  we  can  understand;  for  it  is  grounded 
beyond  experience,  and  guides  us,  blindfold  but  safe,  from  one  age  on 
to  another. 

These  papers  are  like  milestones  on  the  wayside  of  my  life;  and  as 
I  look  back  in  memory,  there  is  hardly  a  stage  of  that  distance  but  I  see 
you  present  with  advice,  reproof,  or  praise.  Meanwhile,  many  things 
have  changed,  you  and  I  among  the  rest;  but  1  hope  that  our  sympathy, 
founded  on  the  love  of  our  art,  and  nourished  by  mutual  assistance, 
shall  survive  these  little  revolutions  undiminished,  and,  with  God's  help, 
unite  us  to  the  end. 

IV..    L»    O. 

Davos  Platz,  i88i. 


VIRGIN  IB  US  PUERISQUE 


PAGE 

"VIRGINIBUS  PUERISQUE"— 

I 3 

II 17 

III  On  Falling  in  Love 28 

IV  Truth  of  Intercourse 40 

CRABBED  AGE  AND  YOUTH 51 

AN   APOLOGY   FOR   IDLERS 67 

ORDERED  SOUTH 80 

JES  TRIPLEX 95 

EL  DORADO 106 

THE  ENGLISH   ADMIRALS 110 

SOME  PORTRAITS  BY   RAEBURN 126 

CHILD'S   PLAY i}6 

WALKING  TOURS 150 

PAN'S   PIPES 160 

A  PLEA  FOR  GAS  LAMPS 165 


CONTENTS 

MEMORIES  AND  PORTRAITS 

PAGE 

THE   FOREIGNER  AT  HOME 177 

SOME  COLLEGE  MEMORIES 191 

OLD  MORTALITY 199 

A  COLLEGE  MAGAZINE 211 

AN   OLD  SCOTCH   GARDENER 223 

PASTORAL 231 

THE  MANSE 241 

MEMOIRS  OF  AN   ISLET 250 

THOMAS  STEVENSON 258 

TALK  AND  TALKERS :   First  Paper      .    .     .    .     .    ...  265 

TALK  AND  TALKERS :  Second  Paper 280 

THE  CHARACTER  OF  DOGS 293 

"A  PENNY  PLAIN  AND  TWOPENCE  COLOURED"     .    .  306 

A  GOSSIP  ON  A  NOVEL  OF  DUMAS'S 315 

A  GOSSIP  ON   ROMANCE 327 

A  HUMBLE  REMONSTRANCE ?44 


VIRGINIBUS  PUERISQUE 

AND  OTHER  PAPERS 


I 


WITH  the  single  exception  of  Falstaff,  all  Shake- 
speare's characters  are  what  we  call  marrying 
men.  Mercutio,  as  he  was  own  cousin  to  Benedick  and 
Biron,  would  have  come  to  the  same  end  in  the  long 
run.  Even  Iago  had  a  wife,  and,  what  is  far  stranger, 
he  was  jealous.  People  like  Jacques  and  the  Fool  in 
Lear,  although  we  can  hardly  imagine  they  would  ever 
marry,  kept  single  out  of  a  cynical  humour  or  for 
a  broken  heart,  and  not,  as  we  do  nowadays,  from  a 
spirit  of  incredulity  and  preference  for  the  single  state. 
For  that  matter,  if  you  turn  to  George  Sand's  French 
version  of  As  You  Like  It  (and  I  think  I  can  promise  you 
will  like  it  but  little),  you  will  find  Jacques  marries  Ce- 
lia  just  as  Orlando  marries  Rosalind. 

At  least  there  seems  to  have  been  much  less  hesitation 
over  marriage  in  Shakespeare's  days;  and  what  hesi- 
tation there  was  was  of  a  laughing  sort,  and  not  much 
more  serious,  one  way  or  the  other,  than  that  of  Pan- 
urge.  In  modern  comedies  the  heroes  are  mostly  of 
Benedick's  way  of  thinking,  but  twice  as  much  in  ear- 
nest, and  not  one  quarter  so  confident.  And  I  take  this 
diffidence  as  a  proof  of  how  sincere  their  terror  is.  They 
know  they  are  only  human  after  all ;  they  know  what 

3 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

^ins  and  pitfalls  lie  about  their  feet ;  and  how  the  shadow 
of  matrimony  waits,  resolute  and  awful,  at  the  cross- 
roads. They  would  wish  to  keep  their  liberty ;  but  if 
that  may  not  be,  why,  God's  will  be  done !  "What,  are 
you  afraid  of  marriage  ?  "  asks  Cecile,  in  Maitre  Guerin. 
"  Oh,  mon  Dieu,  non! "  replies  Arthur;  "  I  should  take 
chloroform."  They  look  forward  to  marriage  much  in 
the  same  way  as  they  prepare  themselves  for  death :  each 
seems  inevitable;  each  is  a  great  Perhaps,  and  a  leap 
into  the  dark,  for  which,  when  a  man  is  in  the  blue 
devils,  he  has  specially  to  harden  his  heart.  That  splen- 
did scoundrel,  Maxime  de  Trailles,  took  the  news  of 
marriages  much  as  an  old  man  hears  the  deaths  of  his 
contemporaries.  ' '  C'est  desesperant, "  he  cried,  throw- 
ing himself  down  in  the  arm-chair  at  Madame  Schontz's ; 
"c'est  desesperant,  nous  nous  marions  tous!"  Every 
marriage  was  like  another  gray  hair  on  his  head;  and 
the  jolly  church  bells  seemed  to  taunt  him  with  his  fifty 
years  and  fair  round  belly. 

The  fact  is,  we  are  much  more  afraid  of  life  than  our 
ancestors,  and  cannot  find  it  in  our  hearts  either  to  marry 
or  not  to  marry.  Marriage  is  terrifying,  but  so  is  a  cold 
and  forlorn  old  age.  The  friendships  of  men  are  vastly 
agreeable,  but  they  are  insecure.  You  know  all  the 
time  that  one  friend  will  marry  and  put  you  to  the  door; 
a  second  accept  a  situation  in  China,  and  become  no 
more  to  you  than  a  name,  a  reminiscence,  and  an  occa- 
sional crossed  letter,  very  laborious  to  read ;  a  third  will 
take  up  with  some  religious  crotchet  and  treat  you  to 
sour  looks  thenceforward.  So,  in  one  way  or  another, 
life  forces  men  apart  and  breaks  up  the  goodly  fellow- 
ships for  ever.     The  very  flexibility  and  ease  which 

4 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERJSQUE" 

make  men's  friendships  so  agreeable  while  they  endure, 
make  them  the  easier  to  destroy  and  forget.  And  a  man 
who  has  a  few  friends,  or  one  who  has  a  dozen  (if  there 
be  any  one  so  wealthy  on  this  earth),  cannot  forget  on 
how  precarious  a  base  his  happiness  reposes;  and  how 
by  a  stroke  or  two  of  fate  —  a  death,  a  few  light  words, 
a  piece  of  stamped  paper,  a  woman's  bright  eyes  —  he 
may  be  left,  in  a  month,  destitute  of  all.  Marriage  is 
certainly  a  perilous  remedy.  Instead  of  on  two  or  three, 
you  stake  your  happiness  on  one  life  only.  But  still,  as 
the  bargain  is  more  explicit  and  complete  on  your  part, 
it  is  more  so  on  the  other;  and  you  have  not  to  fear  so 
many  contingencies ;  it  is  not  every  wind  that  can  blow 
you  from  your  anchorage;  and  so  long  as  Death  with- 
holds his  sickle,  you  will  always  have  a  friend  at  home. 
People  who  share  a  cell  in  the  Bastille,  or  are  thrown  to- 
gether on  an  uninhabited  island,  if  they  do  not  imme- 
diately fall  to  fisticuffs,  will  find  some  possible  ground 
of  compromise.  They  will  learn  each  other's  ways  and 
humours,  so  as  to  know  where  they  must  go  warily, 
and  where  they  may  lean  their  whole  weight.  The 
discretion  of  the  first  years  becomes  the  settled  habit  of 
the  last;  and  so,  with  wisdom  and  patience,  two  lives 
may  grow  indissolubly  into  one. 

But  marriage,  if  comfortable,  is  not  at  all  heroic.  It 
certainly  narrows  and  damps  the  spirits  of  generous 
men.  In  marriage,  a  man  becomes  slack  and  selfish, 
and  undergoes  a  fatty  degeneration  of  his  moral  being. 
It  is  not  only  when  Lydgate  misallies  himself  with  Rosa- 
mond Vincy,  but  when  Ladislaw  marries  above  him 
with  Dorothea,  that  this  may  be  exemplified.  The  air 
of  the  fireside  withers  out  all  the  fine  wildings  of  the 

5 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

husband's  heart.  He  is  so  comfortable  and  happy  that 
he  begins  to  prefer  comfort  and  happiness  to  everything 
else  on  earth,  his  wife  included.  Yesterday  he  would 
have  shared  his  last  shilling;  to-day  "his  first  duty  is 
to  his  family,"  and  is  fulfilled  in  large  measure  by  laying 
down  vintages  and  husbanding  the  health  of  an  invalu- 
able parent.  Twenty  years  ago  this  man  was  equally 
capable  of  crime  or  heroism ;  now  he  is  fit  for  neither. 
His  soul  is  asleep,  and  you  may  speak  without  con- 
straint; you  will  not  wake  him.  It  is  not  for  nothing 
that  Don  Quixote  was  a  bachelor  and  Marcus  Aurelius 
married  ill.  For  women,  there  is  less  of  this  danger. 
Marriage  is  of  so  much  use  to  a  woman,  opens  out  to 
her  so  much  more  of  life,  and  puts  her  in  the  way  of 
so  much  more  freedom  and  usefulness,  that,  whether 
she  marry  ill  or  well,  she  can  hardly  miss  some  benefit. 
It  is  true,  however,  that  some  of  the  merriest  and  most 
genuine  of  women  are  old  maids;  and  that  those  old 
maids,  and  wives  who  are  unhappily  married,  have 
often  most  of  the  true  motherly  touch.  And  this  would 
seem  to  show,  even  for  women,  some  narrowing  influ- 
ence in  comfortable  married  life.  But  the  rule  is  none 
the  less  certain:  if  you  wish  the  pick  of  men  and 
women,  take  a  good  bachelor  and  a  good  wife. 

I  am  often  filled  with  wonder  that  so  many  marriages 
are  passably  successful,  and  so  few  come  to  open  fail- 
ure, the  more  so  as  I  fail  to  understand  the  principle  on 
which  people  regulate  their  choice.  I  see  women  mar- 
rying indiscriminately  with  staring  burgesses  and  ferret- 
faced,  white-eyed  boys,  and  men  dwelling  in  contentment 
with  noisy  scullions,  or  taking  into  their  lives  acidulous 
vestals.     It  is  a  common  answer  to  say  the  good  people 

6 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUER1SQUE" 

marry  because  they  fall  in  love;  and  of  course  you  may 
use  and  misuse  a  word  as  much  as  you  please,  if  you 
have  the  world  along  with  you.  But  love  is  al  least  a 
somewhat  hyperbolical  expression  for  such  lukewarm 
preference.  It  is  not  here,  anyway,  that  Love  employs 
his  golden  shafts ;  he  cannot  be  said,  with  any  fitness 
of  language,  to  reign  here  and  revel.  Indeed,  if  this  be 
love  at  all,  it  is  plain  the  poets  have  been  fooling  with 
mankind  since  the  foundation  of  the  world.  And  you 
have  only  to  look  these  happy  couples  in  the  face,  to 
see  they  have  never  been  in  love,  or  in  hate,  or  in  any 
other  high  passion,  all  their  days.  When  you  see  a  dish 
of  fruit  at  dessert,  you  sometimes  set  your  affections  upon 
one  particular  peach  or  nectarine,  watch  it  with  some 
anxiety  as  it  comes  round  the  table,  and  feel  quite  a 
sensible  disappointment  when  it  is  taken  by  some  one 
else.  I  have  used  the  phrase  "high  passion."  Well, 
I  should  say  this  was  about  as  high  a  passion  as  gener- 
ally leads  to  marriage.  One  husband  hears  after  mar- 
riage that  some  poor  fellow  is  dying  of  his  wife's  love. 
"What  a  pity!"  he  exclaims;  "you  know  I  could  so 
easily  have  got  another! "  And  yet  that  is  a  very  happy 
union.  Or  again:  A  young  man  was  telling  me  the 
sweet  story  of  his  loves.  ' '  I  like  it  well  enough  as  long 
as  her  sisters  are  there,"  said  this  amorous  swain;  "but 
I  don't  know  what  to  do  when  we're  alone."  Once 
more:  A  married  lady  was  debating  the  subject  with 
another  lady.  "  You  know,  dear,"  said  the  first,  "after 
ten  years  of  marriage,  if  he  is  nothing  else,  your  husband 
is  always  an  old  friend."  "  I  have  many  old  friends," 
returned  the  other,  "but  I  prefer  them  to  be  nothing 
more. "   ' '  Oh,  perhaps  I  might  prefer  that  also !  "   There 

7 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

is  a  common  note  in  these  three  illustrations  of  the  mod- 
ern idyll;  and  it  must  be  owned  the  god  goes  among 
us  with  a  limping  gait  and  blear  eyes.  You  wonder 
whether  it  was  so  always ;  whether  desire  was  always 
equally  dull  and  spiritless,  and  possession  equally  cold. 
1  cannot  help  fancying  most  people  make,  ere  they 
marry,  some  such  table  of  recommendations  as  Hannah 
Godwin  wrote  to  her  brother  William  anent  her  friend, 
Miss  Gay.  it  is  so  charmingly  comical,  and  so  pat  to 
the  occasion,  that  I  must  quote  a  few  phrases.  "The 
voung  lady  is  in  every  sense  formed  to  make  one  of  your 
disposition  really  happy.  She  has  a  pleasing  voice,  with 
which  she  accompanies  her  musical  instrument  with 
judgment.  She  has  an  easy  politeness  in  her  manners, 
neither  free  nor  reserved.  She  is  a  good  housekeeper 
and  a  good  economist,  and  yet  of  a  generous  disposi- 
tion. As  to  her  internal  accomplishments,  I  have  rea- 
son to  speak  still  more  highly  of  them :  good  sense  with- 
out vanity,  a  penetrating  judgment  without  a  disposition 
to  satire,  with  about  as  much  religion  as  my  William 
likes,  struck  me  with  a  wish  that  she  was  my  William's 
wife/'  That  is  about  the  tune:  pleasing  voice,  moder- 
ate good  looks,  unimpeachable  internal  accomplishments 
after  the  style  of  the  copy-book,  with  about  as  much 
religion  as  my  William  likes;  and  then,  with  all  speed, 
to  church. 

To  deal  plainly,  if  they  only  married  when  they  fell  in 
love,  most  people  would  die  unwed;  and  among  the 
others,  there  would  be  not  a  few  tumultuous  house- 
holds. The  Lion  is  the  King  of  Beasts,  but  he  is  scarcely 
suitable  for  a  domestic  pet.  In  the  same  way,  I  suspect 
love  is  rather  too  violent  a  passion  to  make,  in  all  cases, 

8 


"VIRG1NIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

a  good  domestic  sentiment.  Like  other  violent  excite- 
ments, it  throws  up  not  only  what  is  best,  but  what  is 
worst  and  smallest,  in  men's  characters.  Just  as  some 
people  are  malicious  in  drink,  or  brawling  and  virulent 
under  che  influence  of  religious  feeling,  some  are  moody, 
jealous,  and  exacting  when  they  are  in  love,  who  are 
honest;  downright  good-hearted  fellows  enough  in  the 
everyday  affairs  and  humours  of  the  world. 

How  then,  seeing  we  are  driven  to  the  hypothesis 
that  people  choose  in  comparatively  cold  blood,  how  is 
it  they  choose  so  well  ?  One  is  almost  tempted  to  hint 
that  it  does  not  much  matter  whom  you  marry ;  that, 
in  fact,  marriage  is  a  subjective  affection,  and  if  you 
have  made  up  your  mind  to  it,  and  once  talked  yourself 
fairly  over,  you  could  "  pull  it  through  "  with  anybody. 
But  even  if  we  take  matrimony  at  its  lowest,  even  if  we 
regard  it  as  no  more  than  a  sort  of  friendship  recognised 
by  the  police,  there  must  be  degrees  in  the  freedom  and 
sympathy  realised,  and  some  principle  to  guide  simple 
folk  in  their  selection.  Now  what  should  this  principle 
be  ?  Are  there  no  more  definite  rules  than  are  to  be 
found  in  the  Prayer-book  ?  Law  and  religion  forbid  the 
bans  on  the  ground  of  propinquity  or  consanguinity; 
society  steps  in  to  separate  classes ;  and  in  all  this  most 
critical  matter,  has  common  sense,  has  wisdom,  never  a 
word  to  say  ?  In  the  absence  of  more  magisterial  teach- 
ing, let  us  talk  it  over  between  friends  :  even  a  few 
guesses  may  be  of  interest  to  youths  and  maidens. 

In  all  that  concerns  eating  and  drinking,  company, 
climate,  and  ways  of  life,  community  of  taste  is  to  be 
sought  for.  It  would  be  trying,  for  instance,  to  keep 
bed  and  board  with  an  early  riser  or  a  vegetarian.     In 

9 


"VIRG1NIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

matters  of  art  and  intellect,  I  believe  it  is  of  no  conse- 
quence. Certainly  it  is  of  none  in  the  companionships 
of  men,  who  will  dine  more  readily  with  one  who  has 
a  good  heart,  a  good  cellar,  and  a  humorous  tongue, 
than  with  another  who  shares  all  their  favourite  hobbies 
and  is  melancholy  withal.  If  your  wife  likes  Tupper, 
that  is  no  reason  why  you  should  hang  your  head. 
She  thinks  with  the  majority,  and  has  the  courage  of 
her  opinions.  I  have  always  suspected  public  taste  to 
be  a  mongrel  product  out  of  affectation  by  dogmatism ; 
and  felt  sure,  if  you  could  only  find  an  honest  man  of 
no  special  literary  bent,  he  would  tell  you  he  thought 
much  of  Shakespeare  bombastic  and  most  absurd,  and 
all  of  him  written  in  very  obscure  English  and  weari- 
some to  read.  And  not  long  ago  I  was  able  to  lay  by 
my  lantern  in  content,  for  I  found  the  honest  man.  He 
was  a  fellow  of  parts,  quick,  humorous,  a  clever  painter, 
and  with  an  eye  for  certain  poetical  effects  of  sea  and 
ships.  I  am  not  much  of  a  judge  of  that  kind  of  thing, 
but  a  sketch  of  his  comes  before  me  sometimes  at  night. 
How  strong,  supple,  and  living  the  ship  seems  upon  the 
billows !  With  what  a  dip  and  rake  she  shears  the  fly- 
ing sea !  I  cannot  fancy  the  man  who  saw  this  effect, 
and  took  it  on  the  wing  with  so  much  force  and  spirit, 
was  what  you  call  commonplace  in  the  last  recesses  of 
the  heart.  And  yet  he  thought,  and  was  not  ashamed 
to  have  it  known  of  him,  that  Ouida  was  better  in  every 
way  than  William  Shakespeare.  If  there  were  more 
people  of  his  honesty,  this  would  be  about  the  staple  of 
lay  criticism.  It  is  not  taste  that  is  plentiful,  but  cour- 
age that  is  rare.  And  what  have  we  in  place  ?  How 
many,  who  think  no  otherwise  than  the  young  painter, 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

have  we  not  heard  disbursing  second-hand  hyperboles  ? 
Have  you  never  turned  sick  at  heart,  O  best  of  critics! 
when  some  of  your  own  sweet  adjectives  were  returned 
on  you  before  a  gaping  audience  ?  Enthusiasm  about 
art  is  become  a  function  of  the  average  female  being, 
which  she  performs  with  precision  and  a  sort  of  haunt- 
ing sprightliness,  like  an  ingenious  and  well-regulated 
machine.  Sometimes,  alas!  the  calmest  man  is  carried 
away  in  the  torrent,  bandies  adjectives  with  the  best, 
and  out-Herods  Herod  for  some  shameful  moments. 
When  you  remember  that,  you  will  be  tempted  to  put 
things  strongly,  and  say  you  will  marry  no  one  who  is 
not  like  George  the  Second,  and  cannot  state  openly  a 
distaste  for  poetry  and  painting. 

The  word  "facts  "  is,  in  some  ways,  crucial.  1  have 
spoken  with  Jesuits  and  Plymouth  Brethren,  mathema- 
ticians and  poets,  dogmatic  republicans  and  dear  old 
gentlemen  in  bird's-eye  neckcloths  ;  and  each  under- 
stood the  word  "facts"  in  an  occult  sense  of  his  own. 
Try  as  I  might,  I  could  get  no  nearer  the  principle  of 
their  division.  What  was  essential  to  them,  seemed  to 
me  trivial  or  untrue.  We  could  come  to  no  compromise 
as  to  what  was,  or  what  was  not,  important  in  the  life 
of  man.  Turn  as  we  pleased,  we  all  stood  back  to  back 
in  a  big  ring,  and  saw  another  quarter  of  the  heavens, 
with  different  mountain-tops  along  the  sky-line  and  dif- 
ferent constellations  overhead.  We  had  each  of  us  some 
whimsy  in  the  brain,  which  we  believed  more  than  any- 
thing else,  and  which  discoloured  all  experience  to  its 
own  shade.  How  would  you  have  people  agree,  when 
one  is  deaf  and  the  other  blind  ?  Now  this  is  where 
there  should  be  community  between  man  and  wife. 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

They  should  be  agreed  on  their  catchword  in  "facts  of 
religion, ' '  or  "facts  of  science,  "ox"  society,  my  dear  '  '; 
for  without  such  an  agreement  all  intercourse  is  a  pain- 
ful strain  upon  the  mind.  "About  as  much  religion  as 
my  William  likes,"  in  short,  that  is  what  is  necessary 
to  make  a  happy  couple  of  any  William  and  his  spouse. 
For  there  are  differences  which  no  habit  nor  affection  can 
reconcile,  and  the  Bohemian  must  not  intermarry  with 
the  Pharisee.  Imagine  Consuelo  as  Mrs.  Samuel  Budget, 
the  wife  of  the  successful  merchant !  The  best  of  men 
and  the  best  of  women  may  sometimes  live  together 
all  their  lives,  and,  for  want  of  some  consent  on  funda- 
mental questions,  hold  each  other  lost  spirits  to  the  end. 
A  certain  sort  of  talent  is  almost  indispensable  for 
people  who  would  spend  years  together  and  not  bore 
themselves  to  death.  But  the  talent,  like  the  agreement, 
must  be  for  and  about  life.  To  dwell  happily  together, 
they  should  be  versed  in  the  niceties  of  the  heart,  and 
born  with  a  faculty  for  willing  compromise.  The  wo- 
man must  be  talented  as  a  woman,  and  it  will  not  much 
matter  although  she  is  talented  in  nothing  else.  She 
must  know  her  metier  de  femme,  and  have  a  fine  touch 
for  the  affections.  And  it  is  more  important  that  a  per- 
son should  be  a  good  gossip,  and  talk  pleasantly  and 
smartly  of  common  friends  and  the  thousand  and  one 
nothings  of  the  day  and  hour,  than  that  she  should  speak 
with  the  tongues  of  men  and  angels;  for  a  while  to- 
gether by  the  fire,  happens  more  frequently  in  marriage 
than  the  presence  of  a  distinguished  foreigner  to  dinner. 
That  people  should  laugh  over  the  same  sort  of  jests,  and 
have  many  a  story  of  "  grouse  in  the  gun-room,"  many 
an  old  joke  between  them  which  time  cannot  wither 

12 


"V1RGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

nor  custom  stale,  is  a  better  preparation  for  life,  by  your 
leave,  than  many  other  things  higher  and  better  sound- 
ing in  the  world's  ears.  You  could  read  Kant  by  your- 
self, if  you  wanted ;  but  you  must  share  a  joke  with 
some  one  else.  You  can  forgive  people  who  do  not  fol- 
low you  through  a  philosophical  disquisition ;  but  to  find 
your  wife  laughing  when  you  had  tears  in  your  eyes, 
or  staring  when  you  were  in  a  fit  of  laughter,  would  go 
some  way  towards  a  dissolution  of  the  marriage. 

I  know  a  woman  who,  from  some  distaste  or  disabil- 
ity, could  never  so  much  as  understand  the  meaning  of 
the  word  politics,  and  has  given  up  trying  to  distinguish 
Whigs  from  Tories ;  but  take  her  on  her  own  politics, 
ask  her  about  other  men  or  women  and  the  chicanery 
of  everyday  existence  —  the  rubs,  the  tricks,  the  vani- 
ties on  which  life  turns  —  and  you  will  not  find  many 
more  shrewd,  trenchant,  and  humorous.  Nay,  to  make 
plainer  what  I  have  in  mind,  this  same  woman  has  a 
share  of  the  higher  and  more  poetical  understanding, 
frank  interest  in  things  for  their  own  sake,  and  enduring 
astonishment  at  the  most  common.  She  is  not  to  be 
deceived  by  custom,  or  made  to  think  a  mystery  solved 
when  it  is  repeated.  I  have  heard  her  say  she  could 
wonder  herself  crazy  over  the  human  eyebrow.  Now 
in  a  world  where  most  of  us  walk  very  contentedly  in 
the  little  lit  circle  of  their  own  reason,  and  have  to  be 
reminded  of  what  lies  without  by  specious  and  clamant 
exceptions  —  earthquakes,  eruptions  of  Vesuvius,  banjos 
floating  in  mid-air  at  a  stance,  and  the  like  —  a  mind  so 
fresh  and  unsophisticated  is  no  despicable  gift.  I  will 
own  I  think  it  a  better  sort  of  mind  than  goes  necessar- 
ily with  the  clearest  views  on  public  business.     It  will 

13 


'VIRG1N1BUS   PUER15QUE" 

wash.  It  will  find  something  to  say  at  an  odd  moment. 
It  has  in  it  the  spring  of  pleasant  and  quaint  fancies. 
Whereas  I  can  imagine  myself  yawning  all  night  long 
until  my  jaws  ached  and  the  tears  came  into  my  eyes, 
although  my  companion  on  the  other  side  of  the  hearth 
held  the  most  enlightened  opinions  on  the  franchise  or 
the  ballot. 

The  question  of  professions,  in  as  far  as  they  regard 
marriage,  was  only  interesting  to  women  until  of  late 
days,  but  it  touches  all  of  us  now.  Certainly,  if  I  could 
help  it,  I  would  never  marry  a  wife  who  wrote.  The 
practice  of  letters  is  miserably  harassing  to  the  mind; 
and  after  an  hour  or  two's  work,  all  the  more  human 
portion  of  the  author  is  extinct ;  he  will  bully,  backbite, 
and  speak  daggers.  Music,  I  hear,  is  not  much  better. 
But  painting,  on  the  contrary,  is  often  highly  sedative; 
because  so  much  of  the  labour,  after  your  picture  is  once 
begun,  is  almost  entirely  manual,  and  of  that  skilled  sort 
of  manual  labour  which  offers  a  continual  series  of  suc- 
cesses, and  so  tickles  a  man,  through  his  vanity,  into 
good  humour.  Alas !  in  letters  there  is  nothing  of  this 
sort.  You  may  write  as  beautiful  a  hand  as  you  will, 
you  have  always  something  else  to  think  of,  and  cannot 
pause  to  notice  your  loops  and  flourishes;  they  are 
beside  the  mark,  and  the  first  law  stationer  could  put 
you  to  the  blush.  Rousseau,  indeed,  made  some  account 
of  penmanship,  even  made  it  a  source  of  livelihood, 
when  he  copied  out  the  Httoise  for  dilettante  ladies ;  and 
therein  showed  that  strange  eccentric  prudence  which 
guided  him  among  so  many  thousand  follies  and  insani- 
ties. It  would  be  well  for  all  of  the  genus  irritabile  thus 
to  add  something  of  skilled  labour  to  intangible  brain- 

U 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

work.  To  find  the  right  word  is  so  doubtful  a  success 
and  lies  so  near  to  failure,  that  there  is  no  satisfaction  in 
a  year  of  it ;  but  we  all  know  when  we  have  formed  a 
letter  perfectly ;  and  a  stupid  artist,  right  or  wrong,  is 
almost  equally  certain  he  has  found  a  right  tone  or  a  right 
colour,  or  made  a  dexterous  stroke  with  his  brush. 
And,  again,  painters  may  work  out  of  doors ;  and  the 
fresh  air,  the  deliberate  seasons,  and  the  "  tranquillising 
influence  "  of  the  green  earth,  counterbalance  the  fever 
of  thought,  and  keep  them  cool,  placable,  and  prosaic. 
A  ship  captain  is  a  good  man  to  marry  if  it  is  a  mar- 
riage of  love,  for  absences  are  a  good  influence  in  love 
and  keep  it  bright  and  delicate ;  but  he  is  just  the  worst 
man  if  the  feeling  is  more  pedestrian,  as  habit  is  too 
frequently  torn  open  and  the  solder  has  never  time  to  set. 
Men  who  fish,  botanise,  work  with  the  turning-lathe,  or 
gather  sea- weeds,  will  make  admirable  husbands;  and 
a  little  amateur  painting  in  water-colour  shows  the  in- 
nocent and  quiet  mind.  Those  who  have  a  few  intimates 
are  to  be  avoided;  while  those  who  swim  loose,  who 
have  their  hat  in  their  hand  all  along  the  street,  who  can 
number  an  infinity  of  acquaintances  and  are  not  charge- 
able with  any  one  friend,  promise  an  easy  disposition 
and  no  rival  to  the  wife's  influence.  I  will  not  say  they 
are  the  best  of  men,  but  they  are  the  stuff  out  of  which 
adroit  and  capable  women  manufacture  the  best  of  hus- 
bands. It  is  to  be  noticed  that  those  who  have  loved 
once  or  twice  already  are  so  much  the  better  educated  to 
a  woman's  hand ;  the  bright  boy  of  fiction  is  an  odd  and 
most  uncomfortable  mixture  of  shyness  and  coarseness, 
and  needs  a  deal  of  civilising.  Lastly  (and  this  is,  per- 
haps, the  golden  rule),  no  woman  should  marry  a  teeto- 

15 


"V1RG1N1BUS    PUERISQUE" 

taller,  or  a  man  who  does  not  smoke.  It  is  not  for  no- 
thing that  this  "ignoble  tabagie,"  as  Michelet  calls  it, 
spreads  over  all  the  world.  Michelet  rails  against  it  be- 
cause it  renders  you  happy  apart  from  thought  or  work ; 
to  provident  women  this  will  seem  no  evil  influence  in 
married  life.  Whatever  keeps  a  man  in  the  front  garden, 
whatever  checks  wandering  fancy  and  all  inordinate 
ambition,  whatever  makes  for  lounging  and  content- 
ment, makes  just  so  surely  for  domestic  happiness. 

These  notes,  if  they  amuse  the  reader  at  all,  will  prob- 
ably amuse  him  more  when  he  differs  than  when  he 
agrees  with  them ;  at  least  they  will  do  no  harm,  for 
nobody  will  follow  my  advice.  But  the  last  word  is  of 
more  concern.  Marriage  is  a  step  so  grave  and  decisive 
that  it  attracts  light-headed,  variable  men  by  its  very 
awfulness.  They  have  been  so  tried  among  the  incon- 
stant squalls  and  currents,  so  often  sailed  for  islands  in 
the  air  or  lain  becalmed  with  burning  heart,  that  they 
will  risk  all  for  solid  ground  below  their  feet.  Desper- 
ate pilots,  they  run  their  sea-sick,  weary  bark  upon  the 
dashing  rocks.  It  seems  as  if  marriage  were  the  royal 
road  through  life,  and  realised,  on  the  instant,  what  we 
have  all  dreamed  on  summer  Sundays  when  the  bells 
ring,  or  at  night  when  we  cannot  sleep  for  the  desire  of 
living.  They  think  it  will  sober  and  change  them. 
Like  those  who  join  a  brotherhood,  they  fancy  it  needs 
but  an  act  to  be  out  of  the  coil  and  clamour  for  ever. 
But  this  is  a  wile  of  the  devil's.  To  the  end,  spring 
winds  will  sow  disquietude,  passing  faces  leave  a  regret 
behind  them,  and  the  whole  world  keep  calling  and 
calling  in  their  ears.  For  marriage  is  like  life  in  this  — 
that  it  is  a  field  of  battle,  and  not  a  bed  of  roses. 

\6 


II 


Hope,  they  say,  deserts  us  at  no  period  of  our  exist- 
ence. From  first  to  last,  and  in  the  face  of  smarting 
disillusions,  we  continue  to  expect  good  fortune,  better 
health,  and  better  conduct;  and  that  so  confidently,  that 
we  judge  it  needless  to  deserve  them.  I  think  it  im- 
probable that  I  shall  ever  write  like  Shakespeare,  con- 
duct an  army  like  Hannibal,  or  distinguish  myself  like 
Marcus  Aurelius  in  the  paths  of  virtue ;  and  yet  I  have 
my  by-days,  hope  prompting,  when  I  am  very  ready  to 
believe  that  I  shall  combine  all  these  various  excellences 
in  my  own  person,  and  go  marching  down  to  posterity 
with  divine  honours.  There  is  nothing  so  monstrous 
but  we  can  believe  it  of  ourselves.  About  ourselves, 
about  our  aspirations  and  delinquencies,  we  have  dwelt 
by  choice  in  a  delicious  vagueness  from  our  boyhood 
up.  No  one  will  have  forgotten  Tom  Sawyer's  aspira- 
tion :  ' '  Ah,  if  he  could  only  die  temporarily  !  ' '  Or,  per- 
haps, better  still,  the  inward  resolution  of  the  two  pi- 
rates, that  "so  long  as  they  remained  in  that  business, 
their  piracies  should  not  again  be  sullied  with  the  crime 
of  stealing."  Here  we  recognise  the  thoughts  of  our 
boyhood ;  and  our  boyhood  ceased  —  well,  when  ?  — 
not,  I  think,  at  twenty;  nor,  perhaps,  altogether  at 
twenty-five ;  nor  yet  at  thirty ;  and  possibly,  to  be  quite 

«7 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQiJE" 

frank,  we  are  still  in  the  thick  of  that  Arcadian  period. 
For  as  the  race  of  man,  after  centuries  of  civilisation,  still 
keeps  some  traits  of  their  barbarian  fathers,  so  man  the 
individual  is  not  altogether  quit  of  youth,  when  he  is  al- 
ready old  and  honoured,  and  Lord  Chancellor  of  Eng- 
land. We  advance  in  years  somewhat  in  the  manner 
of  an  invading  army  in  a  barren  land ;  the  age  that  we 
have  reached,  as  the  phrase  goes,  we  but  hold  with  an 
outpost,  and  still  keep  open  our  communications  with 
the  extreme  rear  and  first  beginnings  of  the  march. 
There  is  our  true  base ;  that  is  not  only  the  beginning, 
but  the  perennial  spring  of  our  faculties ;  and  grandfather 
William  can  retire  upon  occasion  into  the  green  en- 
chanted forest  of  his  boyhood. 

The  unfading  boyishness  of  hope  and  its  vigorous 
irrationality  are  nowhere  better  displayed  than  in  ques- 
tions of  conduct.  There  is  a  character  in  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  one  Mr.  Linger-after- Lust,  with  whom  I  fancy 
we  are  all  on  speaking  terms;  one  famous  among  the 
famous  for  ingenuity  of  hope  up  to  and  beyond  the  mo- 
ment of  defeat;  one  who,  after  eighty  years  of  contrary 
experience,  will  believe  it  possible  to  continue  in  the 
business  of  piracy  and  yet  avoid  the  guilt  of  theft.  Every 
sin  is  our  last ;  every  i  st  of  January  a  remarkable  turning- 
point  in  our  career.  Any  overt  act,  above  all,  is  felt  to 
be  alchemic  in  its  power  to  change.  A  drunkard  takes 
the  pledge ;  it  will  be  strange  if  that  does  not  help  him. 
For  how  many  years  did  Mr.  Pepys  continue  to  make 
and  break  his  little  vows  ?  And  yet  I  have  not  heard 
that  he  was  discouraged  in  the  end.  By  such  steps  we 
think  to  fix  a  momentary  resolution;  as  a  timid  fellow 
hies  him  to  the  dentist's  while  the  tooth  is  stinging. 

18 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

But,  alas,  by  planting  a  stake  at  the  top  of  flood,  you 
can  neither  prevent  nor  delay  the  inevitable  ebb.  There 
is  no  hocus-pocus  in  morality;  and  even  the  "sanc- 
timonious ceremony  "  of  marriage  leaves  the  man 
unchanged.  This  is  a  hard  saying,  and  has  an  air  of 
paradox.  For  there  is  something  in  marriage  so  natural 
and  inviting,  that  the  step  has  an  air  of  great  simplicitv 
and  ease;  it  offers  to  bury  for  ever  many  aching  pre- 
occupations; it  is  to  afford  us  unfailing  and  familiar 
company  through  life;  it  opens  up  a  smiling  prospect 
of  the  blest  and  passive  kind  of  love,  rather  than  the 
blessing  and  active ;  it  is  approached  not  only  through 
the  delights  of  courtship,  but  by  a  public  performance 
and  repeated  legal  signatures.  A  man  naturally  thinks 
it  will  go  hard  with  him  if  he  cannot  be  good  and  fortu- 
nate and  happy  within  such  august  circumvallations. 

And  yet  there  is  probably  no  other  act  in  a  man's  life 
so  hot-headed  and  foolhardy  as  this  one  of  marriage. 
For  years,  let  us  suppose,  you  have  been  making  the 
most  indifferent  business  of  your  career.  Your  experi- 
ence has  not,  we  may  dare  to  say,  been  more  encourag- 
ing than  Paul's  or  Horace's;  like  them,  you  have  seen 
and  desired  the  good  that  you  were  not  able  to  accom- 
plish ;  like  them,  you  have  done  the  evil  that  you  loathed. 
You  have  waked  at  night  in  a  hot  or  a  cold  sweat, 
according  to  your  habit  of  body,  remembering,  with 
dismal  surprise,  your  own  unpardonable  acts  and  say- 
ings. You  have  been  sometimes  tempted  to  withdraw 
entirely  from  this  game  of  life;  as  a  man  who  makes 
nothing  but  misses  withdraws  from  that  less  dangerous 
one  of  billiards.  You  have  fallen  back  upon  the  thought 
that  you  yourself  most  sharply  smarted  for  your  misde- 

<9 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQLJE" 

meanours,  or,  in  the  old,  plaintive  phrase,  that  you  were 
nobody's  enemy  but  your  own.  And  then  you  have 
been  made  aware  of  what  was  beautiful  and  amiable, 
wise  and  kind,  in  the  other  part  of  your  behaviour;  and 
it  seemed  as  if  nothing  could  reconcile  the  contradiction, 
as  indeed  nothing  can.  If  you  are  a  man,  you  have  shut 
your  mouth  hard  and  said  nothing;  and  if  you  are  only 
a  man  in  the  making,  you  have  recognised  that  yours 
was  quite  a  special  case,  and  you  yourself  not  guilty  of 
your  own  pestiferous  career. 

Granted,  and  with  all  my  heart.  Let  us  accept  these 
apologies;  let  us  agree  that  you  are  nobody's  enemy 
but  your  own ;  let  us  agree  that  you  are  a  sort  of  moral 
cripple,  impotent  for  good ;  and  let  us  regard  you  with 
the  unmingled  pity  due  to  such  a  fate.  But  there  is 
one  thing  to  which,  on  these  terms,  we  can  never  agree : 
—  we  can  never  agree  to  have  you  marry.  What!  you 
have  had  one  life  to  manage,  and  have  failed  so  strangely, 
and  now  can  see  nothing  wiser  than  to  conjoin  with  it 
the  management  of  some  one  else's  ?  Because  you  have 
been  unfaithful  in  a  very  little,  you  propose  yourself  to 
be  a  ruler  over  ten  cities.  You  strip  yourself  by  such  a 
step  of  all  remaining  consolations  and  excuses.  You 
are  no  longer  content  to  be  your  own  enemy ;  you  must 
be  your  wife's  also.  You  have  been  hitherto  in  a  mere 
subaltern  attitude;  dealing  cruel  blows  about  you  in 
life,  yet  only  half  responsible,  since  you  came  there  by 
no  choice  or  movement  of  your  own.  Now,  it  appears, 
you  must  take  things  on  your  own  authority :  God  made 
you,  but  you  marry  yourself;  and  for  all  that  your  wife 
suffers,  no  one  is  responsible  but  you.  A  man  must 
be  very  certain  of  his  knowledge  ere  he  undertake  to 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQLJE" 

guide  a  ticket-of-leave  man  through  a  dangerous  pass ; 
you  have  eternally  missed  your  way  in  life,  with  conse- 
quences that  you  still  deplore,  and  yet  you  masterfully 
seize  your  wife's  hand,  and,  blindfold,  drag  her  after 
vou  to  ruin.  And  it  is  your  wife,  you  observe,  whom 
you  select.  She,  whose  happiness  you  most  desire,  you 
choose  to  be  your  victim.  You  would  earnestly  warn 
her  from  a  tottering  bridge  or  bad  investment.  If  she 
were  to  marry  some  one  else,  how  you  would  tremble 
for  her  fate!  If  she  were  only  your  sister,  and  you 
thought  half  as  much  of  her,  how  doubtfully  would  you 
entrust  her  future  to  a  man  no  better  than  yourself ! 

Times  are  changed  with  him  who  marries;  there  are 
no  more  by-path  meadows,  where  you  may  innocently 
linger,  but  the  road  lies  long  and  straight  and  dusty  to 
the  grave.  Idleness,  which  is  often  becoming  and  even 
wise  in  the  bachelor,  begins  to  wear  a  different  aspect 
when  you  have  a  wife  to  support.  Suppose,  after  you 
are  married,  one  of  those  little  slips  were  to  befall  you. 
What  happened  last  November  might  surely  happen 
February  next.  They  may  have  annoyed  you  at  the 
time,  because  they  were  not  what  you  had  meant;  but 
how  will  they  annoy  you  in  the  future,  and  how  will 
they  shake  the  fabric  of  your  wife's  confidence  and 
peace!  A  thousand  things  unpleasing  went  on  in  the 
chiaroscuro  of  a  life  that  you  shrank  from  too  particu- 
larly realising;  you  did  not  care,  in  those  days,  to  make 
a  fetish  of  your  conscience ;  you  would  recognise  your 
failures  with  a  nod,  and  so,  good  day.  But  the  time 
for  these  reserves  is  over.  You  have  wilfully  introduced 
a  witness  into  your  life,  the  scene  of  these  defeats,  and 
can  no  longer  close  the  mind's  eye  upon  uncomely  pas- 


"V1RGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

sages,  but  must  stand  up  straight  and  put  a  name  upon 
your  actions.  And  your  witness  is  not  only  the  judge, 
but  the  victim  of  your  sins;  not  only  can  she  condemn 
you  to  the  sharpest  penalties,  but  she  must  herself  share 
feelingly  in  their  endurance.  And  observe,  once  more, 
with  what  temerity  you  have  chosen  precisely  her  to  be 
your  spy,  whose  esteem  you  value  highest,  and  whom 
you  have  already  taught  to  think  you  better  than  you 
are.  You  may  think  you  had  a  conscience,  and  believed 
in  God ;  but  what  is  a  conscience  to  a  wife  ?  Wise  men 
of  yore  erected  statues  of  their  deities,  and  consciously 
performed  their  part  in  life  before  those  marble  eyes.  A 
god  watched  them  at  the  board,  and  stood  by  their  bed- 
side in  the  morning  when  they  woke;  and  all  about 
their  ancient  cities,  where  they  bought  and  sold,  or 
where  they  piped  and  wrestled,  there  would  stand  some 
symbol  of  the  things  that  are  outside  of  man.  These 
were  lessons,  delivered  in  the  quiet  dialect  of  art,  which 
told  their  story  faithfully,  but  gently.  It  is  the  same 
lesson,  if  you  will  —  but  how  harrowingly  taught !  — 
when  the  woman  you  respect  shall  weep  from  your  un- 
kindness  or  blush  with  shame  at  your  misconduct.  Poor 
girls  in  Italy  turn  their  painted  Madonnas  to  the  wall :  you 
cannot  set  aside  your  wife.  To  marry  is  to  domesticate 
the  Recording  Angel.  Once  you  are  married,  there  is 
nothing  left  for  you,  not  even  suicide,  but  to  be  good. 
And  goodness  in  marriage  is  a  more  intricate  problem 
than  mere  single  virtue;  for  in  marriage  there  are  two 
ideals  to  be  realised.  A  girl,  it  is  true,  has  always  lived 
in  a  glass  house  among  reproving  relatives,  whose  word 
was  law ;  she  has  been  bred  up  to  sacrifice  her  judg- 
ments and  take  the  key  submissively  from  dear  papa; 


"VIRG1N1BUS   PUERISQUE" 

and  it  is  wonderful  how  swiftly  she  can  change  her  tune 
into  the  husband's.  Her  morality  has  been,  too  often, 
an  affair  of  precept  and  conformity.  But  in  the  case  of 
a  bachelor  who  has  enjoyed  some  measure  both  of  pri- 
vacy and  freedom,  his  moral  judgments  have  been  passed 
in  some  accordance  with  his  nature.  His  sins  were  al- 
ways sins  in  his  own  sight;  he  could  then  only  sin  when 
he  did  some  act  against  his  clear  conviction ;  the  light 
that  he  walked  by  was  obscure,  but  it  was  single.  Now, 
when  two  people  of  any  grit  and  spirit  put  their  fortunes 
into  one,  there  succeeds  to  this  comparative  certainty  a 
huge  welter  of  competing  jurisdictions.  It  no  longer 
matters  so  much  how  life  appears  to  one;  one  must  con- 
sult another:  one,  who  may  be  strong,  must  not  offend 
the  other,  who  is  weak.  The  only  weak  brother  I  am 
willing  to  consider  is  (to  make  a  bull  for  once)  my  wife. 
For  her,  and  for  her  only,  I  must  waive  my  righteous 
judgments,  and  go  crookedly  about  my  life.  How,  then, 
in  such  an  atmosphere  of  compromise,  to  keep  honour 
bright  and  abstain  from  base  capitulations  ?  How  are 
you  to  put  aside  love's  pleadings  ?  How  are  you,  the 
apostle  of  laxity,  to  turn  suddenly  about  into  the  rabbi 
of  precision ;  and  after  these  years  of  ragged  practice, 
pose  for  a  hero  to  the  lackey  who  has  found  you  out  ? 
In  this  temptation  to  mutual  indulgence  lies  the  particular 
peril  to  morality  in  married  life.  Daily  they  drop  a  little 
lower  from  the  first  ideal,  and  for  a  while  continue  to 
accept  these  changelings  with  a  gross  complacency.  At 
last  Love  wakes  and  looks  about  him ;  finds  his  hero 
sunk  into  a  stout  old  brute,  intent  on  brandy  pawnee; 
finds  his  heroine  divested  of  her  angel  brightness ;  and 
in  the  flash  of  that  first  disenchantment,  flees  for  ever. 

23 


"VIRGINIBUS  PUERISQUE" 

Again,  the  husband,  in  these  unions,  is  usually  a 
man,  and  the  wife  commonly  enough  a  woman;  and 
when  this  is  the  case,  although  it  makes  the  firmer 
marriage,  a  thick  additional  veil  of  misconception  hangs 
above  the  doubtful  business.  Women,  I  believe,  are 
somewhat  rarer  than  men ;  but  then,  if  I  were  a  woman 
myself,  I  daresay  I  should  hold  the  reverse;  and  at  least 
we  all  enter  more  or  less  wholly  into  one  or  other  of 
these  camps.  A  man  who  delights  women  by  his  femi- 
nine perceptions  will  often  scatter  his  admirers  by  a 
chance  explosion  of  the  under  side  of  man;  and  the 
most  masculine  and  direct  of  women  will  some  day,  to 
your  dire  surprise,  draw  out  like  a  telescope  into  suc- 
cessive lengths  of  personation.  Alas  !  for  the  man, 
knowing  her  to  be  at  heart  more  candid  than  himself, 
who  shall  flounder,  panting,  through  these  mazes  in  the 
quest  for  truth.  The  proper  qualities  of  each  sex  are,  in- 
deed, eternally  surprising  to  the  other.  Between  the 
Latin  and  the  Teuton  races  there  are  similar  divergences, 
not  to  be  bridged  by  the  most  liberal  sympathy.  And 
in  the  good,  plain,  cut-and-dry  explanations  of  this  life, 
which  pass  current  among  us  as  the  wisdom  of  the 
elders,  this  difficulty  has  been  turned  with  the  aid  of 
pious  lies.  Thus,  when  a  young  lady  has  angelic  fea- 
tures, eats  nothing  to  speak  of,  plays  all  day  long  on  the 
piano,  and  sings  ravishingly  in  church,  it  requires  a 
rough  infidelity,  falsely  cal'ed  cynicism,  to  believe  that 
she  may  be  a  little  devil  after  all.  Yet  so  it  is :  she  may 
be  a  tale-bearer,  a  liar,  and  a  thief;  she  may  have  a  taste 
for  brandy,  and  no  heart.  My  compliments  to  George 
Eliot  for  her  Rosamond  Vincy ;  the  ugly  work  of  satire 
she  has  transmuted  to  the  ends  of  art,  by  the  companion 

24 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

figure  of  Lydgate;  and  the  satire  was  much  wanted  for 
the  education  of  young  men.  That  doctrine  of  the  ex- 
cellence of  women,  however  chivalrous,  is  cowardly  as 
well  as  false.  It  is  better  to  face  the  fact,  and  know, 
when  you  marry,  that  you  take  into  your  life  a  creature 
of  equal,  if  of  unlike,  frailties ;  whose  weak  human  heart 
beats  no  more  tunefully  than  yours. 

But  it  is  the  object  of  a  liberal  education  not  only  to 
obscure  the  knowledge  of  one  sex  by  another,  but  to 
magnify  the  natural  differences  between  the  two.  Man 
is  a  creature  who  lives  not  upon  bread  alone,  but  prin- 
cipally by  catchwords;  and  the  little  rift  between  the 
sexes  is  astonishingly  widened  by  simply  teaching  one 
set  of  catchwords  to  the  girls  and  another  to  the  boys. 
To  the  first,  there  is  shown  but  a  very  small  field  of  ex- 
perience, and  taught  a  very  trenchant  principle  for  judg- 
ment and  action ;  to  the  other,  the  world  of  life  is  more 
largely  displayed,  and  their  rule  of  conduct  is  propor- 
tionally widened.  They  are  taught  to  follow  different 
virtues,  to  hate  different  vices,  to  place  their  ideal,  even 
for  each  other,  in  different  achievements.  What  should 
be  the  result  of  such  a  course  ?  When  a  horse  has  run 
away,  and  the  two  flustered  people  in  the  gig  have  each 
possessed  themselves  of  a  rein,  we  know  the  end  of 
that  conveyance  will  be  in  the  ditch.  So,  when  I  see  a 
raw  youth  and  a  green  girl,  fluted  and  fiddled  in  a  danc- 
ing measure  into  that  most  serious  contract,  and  setting 
out  upon  life's  journey  with  ideas  so  monstrously  diver- 
gent, I  am  not  surprised  that  some  make  shipwreck, 
but  that  any  come  to  port.  What  the  boy  does  almost 
proudly,  as  a  manly  peccadillo,  the  girl  will  shudder  at  as 
a  debasing  vice;  what  is  to  her  the  mere  common  sense 

25 


"VIRGINIBUS  PUER1SQUE" 

of  tactics,  he  will  spit  out  of  his  mouth  as  shameful. 
Through  such  a  sea  of  contrarieties  must  this  green 
couple  steer  their  way ;  and  contrive  to  love  each  other ; 
and  to  respect,  forsooth ;  and  be  ready,  when  the  time 
arrives,  to  educate  the  little  men  and  women  who  shall 
succeed  to  their  places  and  perplexities. 

And  yet,  when  all  has  been  said,  the  man  who  should 
hold  back  from  marriage  is  in  the  same  case  with  him 
who  runs  away  from  battle.  To  avoid  an  occasion  for 
our  virtues  is  a  worse  degree  of  failure  than  to  push  for- 
ward pluckily  and  make  a  fall.  It  is  lawful  to  pray  God 
that  we  be  not  led  into  temptation ;  but  not  lawful  to 
skulk  from  those  that  come  to  us.  The  noblest  passage 
in  one  of  the  noblest  books  of  this  century,  is  where  the 
old  pope  glories  in  the  trial,  nay,  in  the  partial  fall  and 
but  imperfect  triumph,  of  the  younger  hero.1  Without 
some  such  manly  note,  it  were  perhaps  better  to  have 
no  conscience  at  all.  But  there  is  a  vast  difference  be- 
tween teaching  flight,  and  showing  points  of  peril  that 
a  man  may  march  the  more  warily.  And  the  true  con- 
clusion of  this  paper  is  to  turn  our  back  on  apprehen- 
sions, and  embrace  that  shining  and  courageous  virtue, 
Faith.  Hope  is  the  boy,  a  blind,  headlong,  pleasant 
fellow,  good  to  chase  swallows  with  the  salt;  Faith  is 
the  grave,  experienced,  yet  smiling  man.  Hope  lives 
on  ignorance;  open-eyed  Faith  is  built  upon  a  knowl- 
edge of  our  life,  of  the  tyranny  of  circumstance  and  the 
frailty  of  human  resolution.  Hope  looks  for  unqualified 
success ;  but  Faith  counts  certainly  on  failure,  and  takes 
honourable  defeat  to  be  a  form  of  victory.  Hope  is  a 
kind  old  pagan;  but  Faith  grew  up  in  Christian  days, 

iBrowning's  Ring  and  Book. 
26 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

and  early  learnt  humility.  In  the  one  temper,  a  man  is 
indignant  that  he  cannot  spring  up  in  a  clap  to  heights 
of  elegance  and  virtue ;  in  the  other,  out  of  a  sense  of 
his  infirmities,  he  is  filled  with  confidence  because  a 
year  has  come  and  gone,  and  he  has  still  preserved  some 
rags  of  honour.  In  the  first,  he  expects  an  angel  for  a 
wife;  in  the  last,  he  knows  that  she  is  like  himself — 
erring,  thoughtless,  and  untrue;  but  like  himself  also, 
filled  with  a  struggling  radiancy  of  better  things,  and 
adorned  with  ineffective  qualities.  You  may  safely  go 
to  school  with  hope ;  but  ere  you  marry,  should  have 
learned  the  mingled  lesson  of  the  world:  that  dolls  are 
stuffed  with  sawdust,  and  yet  are  excellent  playthings ; 
that  hope  and  love  address  themselves  to  a  perfection 
never  realised,  and  yet,  firmly  held,  become  the  salt 
and  staff  of  life;  that  you  yourself  are  compacted  of  in- 
firmities, perfect,  you  might  say,  in  imperfection,  and 
yet  you  have  a  something  in  you  lovable  and  worth 
preserving;  and  that,  while  the  mass  of  mankind  lies 
under  this  scurvy  condemnation,  you  will  scarce  find 
one  but,  by  some  generous  reading,  will  become  to  you 
a  lesson,  a  model,  and  a  noble  spouse  through  life.  So 
thinking,  you  will  constantly  support  your  own  unwor- 
thiness,  and  easily  forgive  the  failings  of  your  friend. 
Nay,  you  will  be  wisely  glad  that  you  retain  the  sense  of 
blemishes ;  for  the  faults  of  married  people  continually 
spur  up  each  of  them,  hour  by  hour,  to  do  better  and  to 
meet  and  love  upon  a  higher  ground.  And  ever,  be- 
tween the  failures,  there  will  come  glimpses  of  kind 
virtues  to  encourage  and  console. 


27 


III.— ON  FALLING  IN  LOVE 

"Lord,  what  fools  these  mortals  be!  " 

There  is  only  one  event  in  life  which  really  astonishes 
a  man  and  startles  him  out  of  his  prepared  opinions. 
Everything  else  befalls  him  very  much  as  he  expected. 
Event  succeeds  to  event,  with  an  agreeable  variety  in- 
deed, but  with  little  that  is  either  startling  or  intense; 
they  form  together  no  more  than  a  sort  of  background, 
or  running  accompaniment  to  the  man's  own  reflections ; 
and  he  falls  naturally  into  a  cool,  curious,  and  smiling 
habit  of  mind,  and  builds  himself  up  in  a  conception  of 
life  which  expects  to-morrow  to  be  after  the  pattern  of 
to-day  and  yesterday.  He  may  be  accustomed  to  the 
vagaries  of  his  friends  and  acquaintances  under  the  in- 
fluence of  love.  He  may  sometimes  look  forward  to  it 
for  himself  with  an  incomprehensible  expectation.  But 
it  is  a  subject  in  which  neither  intuition  nor  the  behaviour 
of  others  will  help  the  philosopher  to  the  truth.  There 
is  probably  nothing  rightly  thought  or  rightly  written  on 
this  matter  of  love  that  is  not  a  piece  of  the  person's  ex- 
perience. I  remember  an  anecdote  of  a  well-known 
French  theorist,  who  was  debating  a  point  eagerly  in  his 
cenacle.  It  was  objected  against  him  that  he  had  never 
experienced  love.  Whereupon  he  arose,  left  the  society, 
and  made  it  a  point  not  to  return  to  it  until  he  considered 

28 


"VIRG1NIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

that  he  had  supplied  the  defect.  "Now,"  he  remarked, 
on  entering,  "  now  I  am  in  a  position  to  continue  the 
discussion. "  Perhaps  he  had  not  penetrated  very  deeply 
into  the  subject  after  all;  but  the  story  indicates  right 
thinking,  and  may  serve  as  an  apologue  to  readers  of 
this  essay. 

When  at  last  the  scales  fall  from  his  eyes,  it  is  not 
without  something  of  the  nature  of  dismay  that  the  man 
finds  himself  in  such  changed  conditions.  He  has  to 
deal  with  commanding  emotions  instead  of  the  easy  dis- 
likes and  preferences  in  which  he  has  hitherto  passed  his 
days ;  and  he  recognises  capabilities  for  pain  and  pleas- 
ure of  which  he  had  not  yet  suspected  the  existence. 
Falling  in  love  is  the  one  illogical  adventure,  the  one 
thing  of  which  we  are  tempted  to  think  as  supernatural, 
in  our  trite  and  reasonable  world.  The  effect  is  out  of 
all  proportion  with  the  cause.  Two  persons,  neither  of 
them,  it  may  be,  very  amiable  or  very  beautiful,  meet, 
speak  a  little,  and  look  a  little  into  each  other's  eyes. 
That  has  been  done  a  dozen  or  so  of  times  in  the  ex- 
perience of  either  with  no  great  result.  But  on  this  oc- 
casion all  is  different.  They  fall  at  once  into  that  state 
in  which  another  person  becomes  to  us  the  very  gist  and 
centrepoint  of  God's  creation,  and  demolishes  our  labori- 
ous theories  with  a  smile;  in  which  our  ideas  are  so 
bound  up  with  the  one  master-thought  that  even  the 
trivial  cares  of  our  own  person  become  so  many  acts  of 
devotion,  and  the  love  of  life  itself  is  translated  into  a 
wish  to  remain  in  the  same  world  with  so  precious  and 
desirable  a  fellow-creature.  And  all  the  while  their  ac- 
quaintances look  on  in  stupor,  and  ask  each  other,  with 
almost  passionate  emphasis,  what  so-and-so  can  see  in 

29 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

that  woman,  or  such-an-one  in  that  man  ?  I  am  sure, 
gentlemen,  I  cannot  tell  you.  For  my  part,  I  cannot 
think  what  the  women  mean.  It  might  be  very  well, 
if  the  Apollo  Belvedere  should  suddenly  glow  all  over 
into  life,  and  step  forward  from  the  pedestal  with  that 
godlike  air  of  his.  But  of  the  misbegotten  changelings 
who  call  themselves  men,  and  prate  intolerably  over 
dinner-tables,  I  never  saw  one  who  seemed  worthy  to 
inspire  love  —  no,  nor  read  of  any,  except  Leonardo  da 
Vinci,  and  perhaps  Goethe  in  his  youth.  About  women 
1  entertain  a  somewhat  different  opinion;  but  there,  I 
have  the  misfortune  to  be  a  man. 

There  are  many  matters  in  which  you  may  waylay 
Destiny,  and  bid  him  stand  and  deliver.  Hard  work,  high 
thinking,  adventurous  excitement,  and  a  great  deal  more 
that  forms  a  part  of  this  or  the  other  person's  spiritual 
bill  of  fare,  are  within  the  reach  of  almost  any  one  who 
can  dare  a  little  and  be  patient.  But  it  is  by  no  means 
in  the  way  of  every  one  to  fall  in  love.  You  know  the 
difficulty  Shakespeare  was  put  into  when  Queen  Eliza- 
beth asked  him  to  show  FalstafT  in  love.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  Henry  Fielding  was  ever  in  love.  Scott,  if  it 
were  not  for  a  passage  or  two  in  Rob  Roy,  would  give 
me  very  much  the  same  effect.  These  are  great  names 
and  (what  is  more  to  the  purpose)  strong,  healthy,  high- 
strung,  and  generous  natures,  of  whom  the  reverse  might 
have  been  expected.  As  for  the  innumerable  army  of 
anaemic  and  tailorish  persons  who  occupy  the  face  of 
this  planet  with  so  much  propriety,  it  is  palpably  absurd 
to  imagine  them  in  any  such  situation  as  a  love-affair. 
A  wet  rag  goes  safely  by  the  fire;  and  if  a  man  is  blind, 
he  cannot  expect  to  be  much  impressed  by  romantic 

30 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

scenery.  Apart  from  all  this,  many  lovable  people  miss 
each  other  in  the  world,  or  meet  under  some  unfavour- 
able star.  There  is  the  nice  and  critical  moment  of  dec- 
laration to  be  got  over.  From  timidity  or  lack  of  op- 
portunity a  good  half  of  possible  love  cases  never  get  so 
far,  and  at  least  another  quarter  do  there  cease  and  de- 
termine. A  very  adroit  person,  to  be  sure,  manages  to 
prepare  the  way  and  out  with  his  declaration  in  the  nick 
of  time.  And  then  there  is  a  fine  solid  sort  of  man,  who 
goes  on  from  snub  to  snub ;  and  if  he  has  to  declare  forty 
times,  will  continue  imperturbably  declaring,  amid  the 
astonished  consideration  of  men  and  angels,  until  he  has 
a  favourable  answer.  I  daresay,  if  one  were  a  woman, 
one  would  like  to  marry  a  man  who  was  capable  of  do- 
ing this,  but  not  quite  one  who  had  done  so.  It  is  just 
a  little  bit  abject,  and  somehow  just  a  little  bit  gross ; 
and  marriages  in  which  one  of  the  parties  has  been  thus 
battered  into  consent  scarcely  form  agreeable  subjects 
for  meditation.  Love  should  run  out  to  meet  love  with 
open  arms.  Indeed,  the  ideal  story  is  that  of  two  peo- 
ple who  go  into  love  step  for  step,  with  a  fluttered  con- 
sciousness, like  a  pair  of  children  venturing  together  into 
a  dark  room.  From  the  first  moment  when  they  see 
each  other,  with  a  pang  of  curiosity,  through  stage  after 
stage  of  growing  pleasure  and  embarrassment,  they  can 
read  the  expression  of  their  own  trouble  in  each  other's 
eyes.  There  is  here  no  declaration  properly  so  called; 
the  feeling  is  so  plainly  shared,  that  as  soon  as  the  man 
knows  what  it  is  in  his  own  heart,  he  is  sure  of  what  it 
is  in  the  woman's. 

This  simple  accident  of  falling  in  love  is  as  beneficial 
as  it  is  astonishing.     It  arrests  the  petrifying  influence 

31 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

of  years,  disproves  cold-blooded  and  cynical  conclusions, 
and  awakens  dormant  sensibilities.  Hitherto  the  man 
had  found  it  a  good  policy  to  disbelieve  the  existence  of 
any  enjoyment  which  was  out  of  his  reach ;  and  thus  he 
turned  his  back  upon  the  strong  sunny  parts  of  nature, 
and  accustomed  himself  to  look  exclusively  on  what  was 
common  and  dull.  He  accepted  a  prose  ideal,  let  him- 
self go  blind  of  many  sympathies  by  disuse;  and  if  he 
were  young  and  witty,  or  beautiful,  wilfully  forewent 
these  advantages.  He  joined  himself  to  the  following  of 
what,  in  the  old  mythology  of  love,  was  prettily  called 
nonchaloir ;  and  in  an  odd  mixture  of  feelings,  a  fling 
of  self-respect,  a  preference  for  selfish  liberty,  and  a  great 
dash  of  that  fear  with  which  honest  people  regard  seri- 
ous interests,  kept  himself  back  from  the  straightforward 
course  of  life  among  certain  selected  activities.  And 
now,  all  of  a  sudden,  he  is  unhorsed,  like  St.  Paul, 
from  his  infidel  affectation.  His  heart,  which  has  been 
ticking  accurate  seconds  for  the  last  year,  gives  a  bound 
and  begins  to  beat  high  and  irregularly  in  his  breast.  It 
seems  as  if  he  had  never  heard  or  felt  or  seen  until  that 
moment;  and  by  the  report  of  his  memory,  he  must 
have  lived  his  past  life  between  sleep  or  waking,  or 
with  the  preoccupied  attention  of  a  brown  study.  He 
is  practically  incommoded  by  the  generosity  of  his  feel- 
ings, smiles  much  when  he  is  alone,  and  develops  a 
habit  of  looking  rather  blankly  upon  the  moon  and  stars. 
But  it  is  not  at  all  within  the  province  of  a  prose  essayist 
to  give  a  picture  of  this  hyperbolical  frame  of  mind;  and 
the  thing  has  been  done  already,  and  that  to  admiration. 
In  Adelaide,  in  Tennyson's  Maud,  and  in  some  of  Heine's 
songs,  you  get  the  absolute  expression  of  this  midsum- 

32 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

mer  spirit.  Romeo  and  Juliet  were  very  much  in  love  ; 
although  they  tell  me  some  German  critics  are  of  a  dif- 
ferent opinion,  probably  the  same  who  would  have 
us  think  Mercutio  a  dull  fellow.  Poor  Antony  was  in 
love,  and  no  mistake.  That  lay  figure  Marius,  in  Les 
Miserable*,  is  also  a  genuine  case  in  his  own  way,  and 
worth  observation.  A  good  many  of  George  Sand's 
people  are  thoroughly  in  love ;  and  so  are  a  good  many 
of  George  Meredith's.  Altogether,  there  is  plenty  to 
read  on  the  subject.  If  the  root  of  the  matter  be  in  him, 
and  if  he  has  the  requisite  chords  to  set  in  vibration,  a 
young  man  may  occasionally  enter,  with  the  key  of  art, 
into  that  land  of  Beulah  which  is  upon  the  borders  of 
Heaven  and  within  sight  of  the  City  of  Love.  There 
let  him  sit  awhile  to  hatch  delightful  hopes  and  perilous 
illusions. 

One  thing  that  accompanies  the  passion  in  its  first 
blush  is  certainly  difficult  to  explain.  It  comes  (I  do 
not  quite  see  how)  that  from  having  a  very  supreme 
sense  of  pleasure  in  all  parts  of  life  —  in  lying  down  to 
sleep,  in  waking,  in  motion,  in  breathing,  in  continuing 
to  be  —  the  lover  begins  to  regard  his  happiness  as  bene- 
ficial for  the  rest  of  the  world  and  highly  meritorious  in 
himself.  Our  race  has  never  been  able  contentedly  to 
suppose  that  the  noise  of  its  wars,  conducted  by  a  few 
young  gentlemen  in  a  corner  of  an  inconsiderable  star, 
does  not  re-echo  among  the  courts  of  Heaven  with  quite 
a  formidable  effect.  In  much  the  same  taste,  when 
people  find  a  great  to-do  in  their  own  breasts,  they 
imagine  it  must  have  some  influence  in  their  neighbour- 
hood. The  presence  of  the  two  lovers  is  so  enchanting 
to  each  other  that  it  seems  as  if  it  must  be  the  best  thing 

33 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUER1SQUE" 

possible  for  everybody  else.  They  are  half  inclined  to 
fancy  it  is  because  of  them  and  their  love  that  the  sky  is 
blue  and  the  sun  shines.  And  certainly  the  weather  is 
usually  fine  while  people  are  courting.  ...  In  point 
of  fact,  although  the  happy  man  feels  very  kindly  to- 
wards others  of  his  own  sex,  there  is  apt  to  be  some- 
thing too  much  of  the  magnifico  in  his  demeanour.  If 
people  grow  presuming  and  self-important  over  such  mat- 
ters as  a  dukedom  or  the  Holy  See,  they  will  scarcely  sup- 
port the  dizziest  elevation  in  life  without  some  suspicion 
of  a  strut;  and  the  dizziest  elevation  is  to  love  and  be 
loved  in  return.  Consequently,  accepted  lovers  are  a 
trifle  condescending  in  their  address  to  other  men.  An 
overweening  sense  of  the  passion  and  importance  of 
life  hardly  conduces  to  simplicity  of  manner.  To  women, 
they  feel  very  nobly,  very  purely,  and  very  generously, 
as  if  they  were  so  many  Joan-of-Arc's ;  but  this  does  not 
come  out  in  their  behaviour;  and  they  treat  them  to 
Grandisonian  airs  marked  with  a  suspicion  of  fatuity.  I 
am  not  quite  certain  that  women  do  not  like  this  sort 
of  thing;  but  really,  after  having  bemused  myself  over 
Daniel  Deronda,  I  have  given  up  trying  to  understand 
what  they  like. 

If  it  did  nothing  else,  this  sublime  and  ridiculous  su- 
perstition, that  the  pleasure  of  the  pair  is  somehow 
blessed  to  others,  and  everybody  is  made  happier  in 
their  happiness,  would  serve  at  least  to  keep  love  gen- 
erous and  great-hearted.  Nor  is  it  quite  a  baseless  super- 
stition after  all.  Other  lovers  are  hugely  interested.  They 
strike  the  nicestbalance  between  pity  and  approval,  when 
they  see  people  aping  the  greatness  of  their  own  senti- 
ments.    It  is  an  understood  thing  in  the  play,  that  while 

34 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

the  young  gentlefolk  are  courting  on  the  terrace,  a  rough 
flirtation  is  being  carried  on,  and  a  light,  trivial  sort  of 
love  is  growing  up,  between  the  footman  and  the  sing- 
ing chambermaid.  As  people  are  generally  cast  for  the 
leading  parts  in  their  own  imaginations,  the  reader  can 
apply  the  parallel  to  real  life  without  much  chance  of 
going  wrong.  In  short,  they  are  quite  sure  this  other 
love-affair  is  not  so  deep-seated  as  their  own,  but  they 
like  dearly  to  see  it  going  forward.  And  love,  consid- 
ered as  a  spectacle,  must  have  attractions  for  many  who 
are  not  of  the  confraternity.  The  sentimental  old  maid 
is  a  commonplace  of  the  novelists ;  and  he  must  be  rather 
a  poor  sort  of  human  being,  to  be  sure,  who  can  look  on 
at  this  pretty  madness  without  indulgence  and  sym- 
pathy. For  nature  commends  itself  to  people  with  a 
most  insinuating  art;  the  busiest  is  now  and  again  ar- 
rested by  a  great  sunset;  and  you  may  be  as  pacific  or 
as  cold-blooded  as  you  will,  but  you  cannot  help  some 
emotion  when  you  read  of  well-disputed  battles,  or  meet 
a  pair  of  lovers  in  the  lane. 

Certainly,  whatever  it  may  be  with  regard  to  the  world 
at  large,  this  idea  of  beneficent  pleasure  is  true  as  between 
the  sweethearts.  To  do  good  and  communicate  is  the 
lover's  grand  intention.  It  is  the  happiness  of  the  other 
that  makes  his  own  most  intense  gratification.  It  is  not 
possible  to  disentangle  the  different  emotions,  the  pride, 
humility,  pity  and  passion,  which  are  excited  by  a  look 
of  happy  love  or  an  unexpected  caress.  To  make  one's 
self  beautiful,  to  dress  the  hair,  to  excel  in  talk,  to  do  any- 
thing and  all  things  that  puff  out  the  character  and  attri- 
butes and  make  them  imposing  in  the  eyes  of  others,  is 
not  only  to  magnify  one's  self,  but  to  offer  the  most  del- 

35 


"VIRGINIBUS  PUERISQUE" 

icate  homage  at  the  same  time.  And  it  is  in  this  latter 
intention  that  they  are  done  by  lovers ;  for  the  essence 
of  love  is  kindness ;  and  indeed  it  may  be  best  defined 
as  passionate  kindness :  kindness,  so  to  speak,  run  mad 
and  become  importunate  and  violent.  Vanity  in  a  merely 
personal  sense  exists  no  longer.  The  lover  takes  a  peril- 
ous pleasure  in  privately  displaying  his  weak  points 
and  having  them,  one  after  another,  accepted  and  con- 
doned. He  wishes  to  be  assured  that  he  is  not  loved 
for  this  or  that  good  quality,  but  for  himself,  or  some- 
thing as  like  himself  as  he  can  contrive  to  set  forward. 
For,  although  it  may  have  been  a  very  difficult  thing  to 
paint  the  marriage  of  Cana,  or  write  the  fourth  act  of 
Antony  and  Cleopatra,  there  is  a  more  difficult  piece  of 
art  before  every  one  in  this  world  who  cares  to  set  about 
explaining  his  own  character  to  others.  Words  and  acts 
are  easily  wrenched  from  their  true  significance;  and 
they  are  all  the  language  we  have  to  come  and  go  upon. 
A  pitiful  job  we  make  of  it,  as  a  rule.  For  better  or 
worse,  people  mistake  our  meaning  and  take  our  emo- 
tions at  a  wrong  valuation.  And  generally  we  rest  pretty 
content  with  our  failures ;  we  are  content  to  be  misap- 
prehended by  cackling  flirts;  but  when  once  a  man  is 
moonstruck  with  this  affection  of  love,  he  makes  it  a  point 
of  honour  to  clear  such  dubieties  away.  He  cannot  have 
the  Best  of  her  Sex  misled  upon  a  point  of  this  import- 
ance; and  his  pride  revolts  at  being  loved  in  a  mistake. 
He  discovers  a  great  reluctance  to  return  on  former 
periods  of  his  life.  To  all  that  has  not  been  shared  with 
her,  rights  and  duties,  bygone  fortunes  and  dispositions, 
he  can  look  back  only  by  a  difficult  and  repugnant  effort 
of  the  will.     That  he  should  have  wasted  some  years  in 

36 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

ignorance  of  what  alone  was  really  important,  that  he 
may  have  entertained  the  thought  of  other  women  with 
any  show  of  complacency,  is  a  burthen  almost  too 
heavy  for  his  self-respect.  But  it  is  the  thought  of 
another  past  that  rankles  in  his  spirit  like  a  poisoned 
wound.  That  he  himself  made  a  fashion  of  being  alive 
in  the  bald,  beggarly  days  before  a  certain  meeting,  is 
deplorable  enough  in  all  good  conscience.  But  that  She 
should  have  permitted  herself  the  same  liberty  seems  in- 
consistent with  a  Divine  providence. 

A  great  many  people  run  down  jealousy,  on  the  score 
that  it  is  an  artificial  feeling,  as  well  as  practically  incon- 
venient. This  is  scarcely  fair;  for  the  feeling  on  which 
it  merely  attends,  like  an  ill-humoured  courtier,  is  itself 
artificial  in  exactly  the  same  sense  and  to  the  same  de- 
gree. I  suppose  what  is  meant  by  that  objection  is  that 
jealousy  has  not  always  been  a  character  of  man ;  formed 
no  part  of  that  very  modest  kit  of  sentiments  with  which 
he  is  supposed  to  have  begun  the  world ;  but  waited  to 
make  its  appearance  in  better  days  and  among  richer 
natures.  And  this  is  equally  true  of  love,  and  friend- 
ship, and  love  of  country,  and  delight  in  what  they  call 
the  beauties  of  nature,  and  most  other  things  worth  hav- 
ing. Love,  in  particular,  will  not  endure  any  historical 
scrutiny :  to  all  who  have  fallen  across  it,  it  is  one  of  the 
most  incontestable  facts  in  the  world ;  but  if  you  begin 
to  ask  what  it  was  in  other  periods  and  countries,  in 
Greece  for  instance,  the  strangest  doubts  begin  to  spring 
up,  and  everything  seems  so  vague  and  changing  that 
a  dream  is  logical  in  comparison.  Jealousy,  at  any  rate, 
is  one  of  the  consequences  of  love ;  you  may  like  it  or 
not,  at  pleasure ;  but  there  it  is. 

37 


"VIRG1N1BUS  PUERISQUE" 

It  is  not  exactly  jealousy,  however,  that  we  feel  when 
we  reflect  on  the  past  of  those  we  love.  A  bundle  of 
letters  found  after  years  of  happy  union  creates  no  sense 
of  insecurity  in  the  present;  and  yet  it  will  pain  a  man 
sharply.  The  two  people  entertain  no  vulgar  doubt  of 
each  other:  but  this  pre-existence  of  both  occurs  to  the 
mind  as  something  indelicate.  To  be  altogether  right, 
they  should  have  had  twin  birth  together,  at  the  same 
moment  with  the  feeling  that  unites  them.  Then  indeed 
it  would  be  simple  and  perfect  and  without  reserve  or 
afterthought.  Then  they  would  understand  each  other 
with  a  fulness  impossible  otherwise.  There  would  be 
no  barrier  between  them  of  associations  that  cannot  be 
imparted.  They  would  be  led  into  none  of  those  com- 
parisons that  send  the  blood  back  to  the  heart.  And  they 
would  know  that  there  had  been  no  time  lost,  and  they 
had  been  together  as  much  as  was  possible.  For  besides 
terror  for  the  separation  that  must  follow  some  time  or 
other  in  the  future,  men  feel  anger,  and  something  like 
remorse,  when  they  think  of  that  other  separation  which 
endured  until  they  met.  Some  one  has  written  that 
love  makes  people  believe  in  immortality,  because  there 
seems  not  to  be  room  enough  in  life  for  so  great  a  ten- 
derness, and  it  is  inconceivable  that  the  most  masterful 
of  our  emotions  should  have  no  more  than  the  spare  mo- 
ments of  a  few  years.  Indeed,  it  seems  strange ;  but  if 
we  call  to  mind  analogies,  we  can  hardly  regard  it  as 
impossible. 

"The  blind  bow-boy,"  who  smiles  upon  us  from  the 
end  of  terraces  in  old  Dutch  gardens,  laughingly  hails  his 
bird-bolts  among  a  fleeting  generation.  But  for  as  fast 
as  ever  he  shoots,  the  game  dissolves  and  disappears  into 

38 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQyE-» 

eternity  from  under  his  falling  arrows ;  this  one  is  gone 
ere  he  is  struck;  the  other  has  but  time  to  make  one 
gesture  and  give  one  passionate  cry ;  and  they  are  all  the 
things  of  a  moment.  When  the  generation  is  gone, 
when  the  play  is  over,  when  the  thirty  years'  panorama 
has  been  withdrawn  in  tatters  from  the  stage  of  the 
world,  we  may  ask  what  has  become  of  these  great, 
weighty,  and  undying  loves,  and  the  sweethearts  who 
despised  mortal  conditions  in  a  fine  credulity ;  and  they 
can  only  show  us  a  few  songs  in  a  bygone  taste,  a  few 
actions  worth  remembering,  and  a  few  children  who 
have  retained  some  happy  stamp  from  the  disposition  of 
their  parents. 


39 


IV.— TRUTH  OF  INTERCOURSE 

Among  sayings  that  have  a  currency  in  spite  of  being 
wholly  false  upon  the  face  of  them  for  the  sake  of  a  half- 
truth  upon  another  subject  which  is  accidentally  com- 
bined with  the  error,  one  of  the  grossest  and  broadest 
conveys  the  monstrous  proposition  that  it  is  easy  to  tell 
the  truth  and  hard  to  tell  a  lie.  I  wish  heartily  it  were. 
But  the  truth  is  one ;  it  has  first  to  be  discovered,  then 
justly  and  exactly  uttered.  Even  with  instruments  spe- 
cially contrived  for  such  a  purpose  —  with  a  foot  rule,  a 
level,  or  a  theodolite  —  it  is  not  easy  to  be  exact ;  it  is 
easier,  alas !  to  be  inexact.  From  those  who  mark  the 
divisions  on  a  scale  to  those  who  measure  the  boundaries 
of  empires  or  the  distance  of  the  heavenly  stars,  it  is  by 
careful  method  and  minute,  unwearying  attention  that 
men  rise  even  to  material  exactness  or  to  sure  knowledge 
even  of  external  and  constant  things.  But  it  is  easier  to 
draw  the  outline  of  a  mountain  than  the  changing  ap- 
pearance of  a  face ;  and  truth  in  human  relations  is  of  this 
more  intangible  and  dubious  order:  hard  to  seize,  harder 
to  communicate.  Veracity  to  facts  in  a  loose,  colloquial 
sense  —  not  to  say  that  I  have  been  in  Malabar  when  as 
a  matter  of  fact  I  was  never  out  of  England,  not  to  say 
that  I  have  read  Cervantes  in  the  original  when  as  a 

40 


"  VIRG1NIBUS   PUERISQUE  » 

matter  of  fact  I  know  not  one  syllable  of  Spanish  —  this, 
indeed,  is  easy  and  to  the  same  degree  unimportant  in 
itself.  Lies  of  this  sort,  according  to  circumstances,  may 
or  may  not  be  important;  in  a  certain  sense  even  they 
may  or  may  not  be  false.  The  habitual  liar  may  be  a  very 
honest  fellow,  and  live  truly  with  his  wife  and  friends ; 
while  another  man  who  never  told  a  formal  falsehood  in 
his  life  may  yet  be  himself  one  lie  —  heart  and  face,  from 
top  to  bottom.  This  is  the  kind  of  lie  which  poisons  in- 
timacy. And,  vice  versa,  veracity  to  sentiment,  truth  in 
a  relation,  truth  to  your  own  heart  and  your  friends, 
never  to  feign  or  falsify  emotion  —  that  is  the  truth  which 
makes  love  possible  and  mankind  happy. 

L'art  de  bien  dire  is  but  a  drawing-room  accomplish- 
ment unless  it  be  pressed  into  the  service  of  the  truth. 
The  difficulty  of  literature  is  not  to  write,  but  to  write 
what  you  mean ;  not  to  affect  your  reader,  but  to  affect 
him  precisely  as  you  wish.  This  is  commonly  under- 
stood in  the  case  of  books  or  set  orations;  even  in  mak- 
ing your  will,  or  writing  an  explicit  letter,  some  diffi- 
culty is  admitted  by  the  world.  But  one  thing  you  can 
never  make  Philistine  natures  understand;  one  thing, 
which  yet  lies  on  the  surface,  remains  as  unseizable  to 
their  wits  as  a  high  flight  of  metaphysics  —  namely,  that 
the  business  of  life  is  mainly  carried  on  by  means  of  this 
difficult  art  of  literature,  and  according  to  a  man's  pro- 
ficiency in  that  art  shall  be  the  freedom  and  the  fulness 
of  his  intercourse  with  other  men.  Anybody,  it  is  sup- 
posed, can  say  what  he  means;  and,  in  spite  of  their  no- 
torious experience  to  the  contrary,  people  so  continue  to 
suppose.  Now,  I  simply  open  the  last  book  I  have  been 
reading  —  Mr.  Leland's  captivating  English  Gipsies.    "  It 

41 


"VIRGINIBUS  PUERISQUE" 

is  said,"  I  find  on  p.  7,  "that  those  who  can  converse  with 
Irish  peasants  in  their  own  native  tongue  form  far  higher 
opinions  of  their  appreciation  of  the  beautiful,  and  of  the 
elements  of  humour  and  pathos  in  their  hearts,  than  do 
those  who  know  their  thoughts  only  through  the  me- 
dium of  English.  I  know  from  my  own  observations 
that  this  is  quite  the  case  with  the  Indians  of  North 
America,  and  it  is  unquestionably  so  with  the  gipsy." 
In  short,  where  a  man  has  not  a  full  possession  of  the 
language,  the  most  important,  because  the  most  amiable, 
qualities  of  his  nature  have  to  lie  buried  and  fallow ;  for 
the  pleasure  of  comradeship,  and  the  intellectual  part  of 
love,  rest  upon  these  very  "elements  of  humour  and 
pathos."  Here  is  a  man  opulent  in  both,  and  for  lack 
of  a  medium  he  can  put  none  of  it  out  to  interest  in  the 
market  of  affection !  But  what  is  thus  made  plain  to  our 
apprehensions  in  the  case  of  a  foreign  language  is  par- 
tially true  even  with  the  tongue  we  learned  in  childhood. 
Indeed,  we  all  speak  different  dialects ;  one  shall  be  co- 
pious and  exact,  another  loose  and  meagre ;  but  the  speech 
of  the  ideal  talker  shall  correspond  and  fit  upon  the  truth 
of  fact  —  not  clumsily,  obscuring  lineaments,  like  a  man- 
tle, but  cleanly  adhering,  like  an  athlete's  skin.  And 
what  is  the  result  ?  That  the  one  can  open  himself  more 
clearly  to  his  friends,  and  can  enjoy  more  of  what  makes 
life  truly  valuable  —  intimacy  with  those  he  loves.  An 
orator  makes  a  false  step ;  he  employs  some  trivial,  some 
absurd,  some  vulgar  phrase;  in  the  turn  of  a  sentence  he 
insults,  by  a  side  wind,  those  whom  he  is  labouring  to 
charm;  in  speaking  to  one  sentiment  he  unconsciously 
ruffles  another  in  parenthesis ;  and  you  are  not  surprised, 
for  you  know  his  task  to  be  delicate  and  filled  with  per- 

42 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

ils.  "0  frivolous  mind  of  man,  light  ignorance!  "  As 
if  yourself,  when  you  seek  to  explain  some  misunder- 
standing or  excuse  some  apparent  fault,  speaking  swiftly 
and  addressing  a  mind  still  recently  incensed,  were  not 
harnessing  for  a  more  perilous  adventure ;  as  if  yourself 
required  less  tact  and  eloquence ;  as  if  an  angry  friend  or 
a  suspicious  lover  were  not  more  easy  to  offend  than  a 
meeting  of  indifferent  politicians !  Nay,  and  the  orator 
treads  in  a  beaten  round ;  the  matters  he  discusses  have 
been  discussed  a  thousand  times  before;  language  is 
ready-shaped  to  his  purpose;  he  speaks  out  of  a  cut  and 
dry  vocabulary.  But  you  —  may  it  not  be  that  your  de- 
fence reposes  on  some  subtlety  of  feeling,  not  so  much  as 
touched  upon  in  Shakespeare,  to  express  which,  like  a 
pioneer,  you  must  venture  forth  into  zones  of  thought 
still  unsurveyed,  and  become  yourself  a  literary  inno- 
vator? For  even  in  love  there  are  unlovely  humours; 
ambiguous  acts,  unpardonable  words,  may  yet  have 
sprung  from  a  kind  sentiment.  If  the  injured  one  could 
read  your  heart,  you  may  be  sure  that  he  would  under- 
stand and  pardon;  but,  alas!  the  heart  cannot  be  shown 
—  it  has  to  be  demonstrated  in  words.  Do  you  think  it 
is  a  hard  thing  to  write  poetry  ?  Why,  that  is  to  write 
poetry,  and  of  a  high,  if  not  the  highest,  order. 

I  should  even  more  admire  "the  lifelong  and  heroic 
literary  labours  "  of  my  fellow-men,  patiently  clearing 
up  in  words  their  loves  and  their  contentions,  and  speak- 
ing their  autobiography  daily  to  their  wives,  were  it  not 
for  a  circumstance  which  lessens  their  difficulty  and  my 
admiration  by  equal  parts.  For  life,  though  largely,  is 
not  entirely  carried  on  by  literature.  We  are  subject  to 
physical  passions  and  contortions ;  the  voice  breaks  and 

43 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUER1SQUE" 

changes,  and  speaks  by  unconscious  and  winning  in- 
flections; we  have  legible  countenances,  like  an  open 
book ;  things  that  cannot  be  said  look  eloquently  through 
the  eyes;  and  the  soul,  not  locked  into  the  body  as  a 
dungeon,  dwells  ever  on  the  threshold  with  appealing 
signals.  Groans  and  tears,  looks  and  gestures,  a  flush 
or  a  paleness,  are  often  the  most  clear  reporters  of  the 
heart,  and  speak  more  directly  to  the  hearts  of  others. 
The  message  flies  by  these  interpreters  in  the  least  space 
of  time,  and  the  misunderstanding  is  averted  in  the  mo- 
ment of  its  birth.  To  explain  in  words  takes  time  and 
a  just  and  patient  hearing;  and  in  the  critical  epochs  of 
a  close  relation,  patience  and  justice  are  not  qualities  on 
which  we  can  rely.  But  the  look  or  the  gesture  explains 
things  in  a  breath ;  they  tell  their  message  without  am- 
biguity; unlike  speech,  they  cannot  stumble,  by  the 
way,  on  a  reproach  or  an  allusion  that  should  steel  your 
friend  against  the  truth ;  and  then  they  have  a  higher 
authority,  for  they  are  the  direct  expression  of  the  heart, 
not  yet  transmitted  through  the  unfaithful  and  sophisti- 
cating brain.  Not  long  ago  I  wrote  a  letter  to  a  friend 
which  came  near  involving  us  in  quarrel ;  but  we  met, 
and  in  personal  talk  I  repeated  the  worst  of  what  I  had 
written,  and  added  worse  to  that;  and  with  the  com- 
mentary of  the  body  it  seemed  not  unfriendly  either  to 
hear  or  say.  Indeed,  letters  are  in  vain  for  the  purposes 
of  intimacy ;  an  absence  is  a  dead  break  in  the  relation ; 
yet  two  who  know  each  other  fully  and  are  bent  on  per- 
petuity in  love,  may  so  preserve  the  attitude  of  their 
affections  that  they  may  meet  on  the  same  terms  as  they 
had  parted. 
Pitiful  is  the  case  of  the  blind,  who  cannot  read  the 
44 


"VIRGINIBUS  PUERISQLJE" 

face;  pitiful  that  of  the  deaf,  who  cannot  follow  the 
changes  of  the  voice.  And  there  are  others  also  to  be 
pitied ;  for  there  are  some  of  an  inert,  uneloquent  nature, 
who  have  been  denied  all  the  symbols  of  communica- 
tion, who  have  neither  a  lively  play  of  facial  expression, 
nor  speaking  gestures,  nor  a  responsive  voice,  nor  yet 
the  gift  of  frank,  explanatory  speech :  people  truly  made 
of  clay,  people  tied  for  life  into  a  bag  which  no  one  can 
undo.  They  are  poorer  than  the  gypsy,  for  their  heart 
can  speak  no  language  under  heaven.  Such  people  we 
must  learn  slowly  by  the  tenor  of  their  acts,  or  through 
yea  and  nay  communications;  or  we  take  them  on  trust 
on  the  strength  of  a  general  air,  and  now  and  again, 
when  we  see  the  spirit  breaking  through  in  a  flash,  cor- 
rect or  change  our  estimate.  But  these  will  be  uphill 
intimacies,  without  charm  or  freedom,  to  the  end;  and 
freedom  is  the  chief  ingredient  in  confidence.  Some 
minds,  romantically  dull,  despise  physical  endowments. 
That  is  a  doctrine  for  a  misanthrope;  to  those  who  like 
their  fellow-creatures  it  must  always  be  meaningless; 
and,  for  my  part,  I  can  see  few  things  more  desirable, 
after  the  possession  of  such  radical  qualities  as  honour 
and  humour  and  pathos,  than  to  have  a  lively  and  not  a 
stolid  countenance;  to  have  looks  to  correspond  with 
every  feeling ;  to  be  elegant  and  delightful  in  person,  so 
that  we  shall  please  even  in  the  intervals  of  active  pleas- 
ing, and  may  never  discredit  speech  with  uncouth  man- 
ners or  become  unconsciously  our  own  burlesques.  But 
of  all  unfortunates  there  is  one  creature  (for  1  will  not  call 
him  man)  conspicuous  in  misfortune.  This  is  he  who 
has  forfeited  his  birthright  of  expression,  who  has  cul- 
tivated artful  intonations,  who  has  taught  his  face  tricks, 

45 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

like  a  pet  monkey,  and  on  every  side  perverted  or  cut 
off  his  means  of  communication  with  his  fellow-men. 
The  body  is  a  house  of  many  windows:  there  we  all 
sit,  showing  ourselves  and  crying  on  the  passers-by  to 
come  and  love  us.  But  this  fellow  has  filled  his  win- 
dows with  opaque  glass,  elegantly  coloured.  His  house 
may  be  admired  for  its  design,  the  crowd  may  pause 
before  the  stained  windows,  but  meanwhile  the  poor 
proprietor  must  lie  languishing  within,  uncomforted, 
unchangeably  alone. 

Truth  of  intercourse  is  something  more  difficult  than 
to  refrain  from  open  lies.  It  is  possible  to  avoid  false- 
hood and  yet  not  tell  the  truth.  It  is  not  enough  to  an- 
swer formal  questions.  To  reach  the  truth  by  yea  and  nay 
communications  implies  a  questioner  with  a  share  of  in- 
spiration, such  as  is  often  found  in  mutual  love.  Yea 
and  nay  mean  nothing ;  the  meaning  must  have  been  re- 
lated in  the  question.  Many  words  are  often  necessary 
to  convey  a  very  simple  statement;  for  in  this  sort  of 
exercise  we  never  hit  the  gold ;  the  most  that  we  can 
hope  is  by  many  arrows,  more  or  less  far  off  on  differ- 
ent sides,  to  indicate,  in  the  course  of  time,  for  what 
target  we  are  aiming,  and  after  an  hour's  talk,  back  and 
forward,  to  convey  the  purport  of  a  single  principle  or  a 
single  thought.  And  yet  while  the  curt,  pithy  speaker 
misses  the  point  entirely,  a  wordy,  prolegomenous  bab- 
bler will  often  add  three  new  offences  in  the  process  of 
excusing  one.  It  is  really  a  most  delicate  affair.  The 
world  was  made  before  the  English  language,  and  seem- 
ingly upon  a  different  design.  Suppose  we  held  our 
converse  not  in  words,  but  in  music;  those  who  have 
a  bad  ear  would  find  themselves  cut  off  from  all  near 

46 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQLJE" 

commerce,  and  no  better  than  foreigners  in  this  big 
world.  But  we  do  not  consider  how  many  have  "a 
bad  ear "  for  words,  nor  how  often  the  most  eloquent 
find  nothing  to  reply.  I  hate  questioners  and  ques- 
tions ;  there  are  so  few  that  can  be  spoken  to  without  a 
lie.  "  Do  you  forgive  me?  "  Madam  and  sweetheart, 
so  far  as  I  have  gone  in  life  I  have  never  yet  been  able 
to  discover  what  forgiveness  means.  "  Is  it  still  the 
same  between  us}  "  Why,  how  can  it  be  ?  It  is  eter- 
nally different;  and  yet  you  are  still  the  friend  of  my 
heart.  " Do  you  understand  me?  '  God  knows;  I 
should  think  it  highly  improbable. 

The  cruellest  lies  are  often  told  in  silence.  A  man 
may  have  sat  in  a  room  for  hours  and  not  opened  his 
teeth,  and  yet  come  out  of  that  room  a  disloyal  friend 
or  a  vile  calumniator.  And  how  many  loves  have  per- 
ished because,  from  pride,  or  spite,  or  diffidence,  or  that 
unmanly  shame  which  withholds  a  man  from  daring  to 
betray  emotion,  a  lover,  at  the  critical  point  of  the  rela- 
tion, has  but  hung  his  head  and  held  his  tongue  ?  And, 
again,  a  lie  may  be  told  by  a  truth,  or  a  truth  conveyed 
through  a  lie.  Truth  to  facts  is  not  always  truth  to  sen- 
timent; and  part  of  the  truth,  as  often  happens  in  answer 
to  a  question,  may  be  the  foulest  calumny.  A  fact  may 
be  an  exception ;  but  the  feeling  is  the  law,  and  it  is  that 
which  you  must  neither  garble  nor  belie.  The  whole 
tenor  of  a  conversation  is  a  part  of  the  meaning  of  each 
separate  statement;  the  beginning  and  the  end  define 
and  travesty  the  intermediate  conversation.  You  never 
speak  to  God ;  you  address  a  fellow-man,  full  of  his  own 
tempers;  and  to  tell  truth,  rightly  understood,  is  not  to 
state  the  true  facts,  but  to  convey  a  true  impression ; 

47 


"VIRGINIBUS  PUERISQUE" 

truth  in  spirit,  not  truth  to  letter,  is  the  true  veracity. 
To  reconcile  averted  friends  a  Jesuitical  discretion  is  often 
needful,  not  so  much  to  gain  a  kind  hearing  as  to  com- 
municate sober  truth.  Women  have  an  ill  name  in  this 
connection ;  yet  they  live  in  as  true  relations ;  the  lie  of 
a  good  woman  is  the  true  index  of  her  heart. 

"It  takes,"  says  Thoreau,  in  the  noblest  and  most 
useful  passage  I  remember  to  have  read  in  any  modern 
author,1  "two  to  speak  truth  —  one  to  speak  and  an- 
other to  hear."  He  must  be  very  little  experienced,  or 
have  no  great  zeal  for  truth,  who  does  not  recognise  the 
fact.  A  grain  of  anger  or  a  grain  of  suspicion  produces 
strange  acoustical  effects,  and  makes  the  ear  greedy  to 
remark  offence.  Hence  we  find  those  who  have  once 
quarrelled  carry  themselves  distantly,  and  are  ever  ready 
to  break  the  truce.  To  speak  truth  there  must  be 
moral  equality  or  else  no  respect;  and  hence  between 
parent  and  child  intercourse  is  apt  to  degenerate  into  a 
verbal  fencing  bout,  and  misapprehensions  to  become 
ingrained.  And  there  is  another  side  to  this,  for  the 
parent  begins  with  an  imperfect  notion  of  the  child's 
character,  formed  in  early  years  or  during  the  equinoctial 
gales  of  youth ;  to  this  he  adheres,  noting  only  the  facts 
which  suit  with  his  preconception;  and  wherever  a  per- 
son fancies  himself  unjustly  judged,  he  at  once  and  finally 
gives  up  the  effort  to  speak  truth.  With  our  chosen 
friends,  on  the  other  hand,  and  still  more  between  lovers 
(for  mutual  understanding  is  love's  essence),  the  truth 
is  easily  indicated  by  the  one  and  aptly  comprehended 
by  the  other.     A  hint  taken,  a  look  understood,  conveys 

1 A  IVeek  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimack  T^ivers,  Wednesday,  p. 
a83. 

48 


"VIRGINIBUS  PUERISQUE" 

the  gist  of  long  and  delicate  explanations ;  and  where  the 
life  is  known  even  yea  and  nay  become  luminous.  In 
the  closest  of  all  relations  —  that  of  a  love  well  founded 
and  equally  shared  —  speech  is  half  discarded,  like  a 
roundabout,  infantile  process  or  a  ceremony  of  formal 
etiquette ;  and  the  two  communicate  directly  by  their 
presences,  and  with  few  looks  and  fewer  words  contrive 
to  share  their  good  and  evil  and  uphold  each  other's 
hearts  in  joy.  For  love  rests  upon  a  physical  basis ;  it 
is  a  familiarity  of  nature's  making  and  apart  from  vol- 
untary choice.  Understanding  has  in  some  sort  outrun 
knowledge,  for  the  affection  perhaps  began  with  the 
acquaintance;  and  as  it  was  not  made  like  other  rela- 
tions, so  it  is  not,  like  them,  to  be  perturbed  or  clouded. 
Each  knows  more  than  can  be  uttered;  each  lives  by 
faith,  and  believes  by  a  natural  compulsion ;  and  between 
man  and  wife  the  language  of  the  body  is  largely  devel- 
oped and  grown  strangely  eloquent.  The  thought  that 
prompted  and  was  conveyed  in  a  caress  would  only  lose 
to  be  set  down  in  words  —  ay,  although  Shakespeare 
himself  should  be  the  scribe. 

Yet  it  is  in  these  dear  intimacies,  beyond  all  others, 
that  we  must  strive  and  do  battle  for  the  truth.  Let  but 
a  doubt  arise,  and  alas!  all  the  previous  intimacy  and 
confidence  is  but  another  charge  against  the  person 
doubted.  "  What  a  monstrous  dishonesty  is  this  if  I 
have  been  deceived  so  long  and  so  completely  !  ' '  Let  but 
that  thought  gain  entrance,  and  you  plead  before  a  deaf 
tribunal.  Appeal  to  the  past;  why,  that  is  your  crime! 
Make  all  clear,  convince  the  reason ;  alas !  speciousness  is 
but  a  proof  against  you.  "  If  you  can  abuse  me  now,  the 
more  likely  that  you  have  abused  me  from  the  first. " 

49 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

For  a  strong  affection  such  moments  are  worth  sup- 
porting, and  they  will  end  well ;  for  your  advocate  is 
in  your  lover's  heart,  and  speaks  her  own  language; 
it  is  not  you  but  she  herself  who  can  defend  and  clear 
you  of  the  charge.  But  in  slighter  intimacies,  and  for  a 
less  stringent  union  ?  Indeed,  is  it  worth  while  ?  We 
are  all  incompris,  only  more  or  less  concerned  for  the 
mischance;  all  trying  wrongly  to  do  right;  all  fawning 
at  each  other's  feet  like  dumb,  neglected  lap-dogs. 
Sometimes  we  catch  an  eye  —  this  is  our  opportunity 
in  the  ages  —  and  we  wag  our  tail  with  a  poor  smile. 
"  Is  that  all?  "  All  ?  If  you  only  knew!  But  how  can 
they  know  ?  They  do  not  love  us ;  the  more  fools  we 
to  squander  life  on  the  indifferent. 

But  the  morality  of  the  thing,  you  will  be  glad  to  hear, 
is  excellent;  for  it  is  only  by  trying  to  understand  others 
that  we  can  get  our  own  hearts  understood;  and  in  mat- 
ters of  human  feeling  the  clement  judge  is  the  most  suc- 
cessful pleader. 


50 


CRABBED  AGE  AND  YOUTH 

M  You  know  my  mother  now  and  then  argues  very  notably;  always 
very  warmly  at  least.  I  happen  often  to  differ  from  her;  and  we  both 
think  so  well  of  our  own  arguments,  that  we  very  seldom  are  so  happy 
as  to  convince  one  another.  A  pretty  common  case,  I  believe,  in  all 
vehement  debatings.  She  says,  I  am  too  witty;  Anglice,  too  pert;  I, 
that  she  is  too  wise;  that  is  to  say,  being  likewise  put  into  English,  not 
so  young  as  she  has  been."  —  Miss  Howe  to  Miss  Harlowe,  Clarissa, 
vol.  ii.  Letter  xiii. 

THERE  is  a  strong  feeling  in  favour  of  cowardly  and 
prudential  proverbs.  The  sentiments  of  a  man 
while  he  is  full  of  ardour  and  hope  are  to  be  received, 
it  is  supposed,  with  some  qualification.  But  when  the 
same  person  has  ignominiously  failed  and  begins  to  eat 
up  his  words,  he  should  be  listened  to  like  an  oracle. 
Most  of  our  pocket  wisdom  is  conceived  for  the  use  of 
mediocre  people,  to  discourage  them  from  ambitious 
attempts,  and  generally  console  them  in  their  mediocrity. 
And  since  mediocre  people  constitute  the  bulk  of  hu- 
manity, this  is  no  doubt  very  properly  so.  But  it  does 
not  follow  that  the  one  sort  of  proposition  is  any  less 
true  than  the  other,  or  that  Icarus  is  not  to  be  more 
praised,  and  perhaps  more  envied,  than  Mr.  Samuel 
Budgett  the  Successful  Merchant.  The  one  is  dead,  to 
be  sure,  while  the  other  is  still  in  his  counting-house 

51 


"  VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE  » 

counting  out  his  money ;  and  doubtless  this  is  a  consid- 
eration. But  we  have,  on  the  other  hand,  some  bold 
and  magnanimous  sayings  common  to  high  races  and 
natures,  which  set  forth  the  advantage  of  the  losing  side, 
and  proclaim  it  better  to  be  a  dead  lion  than  a  living  dog. 
It  is  difficult  to  fancy  how  the  mediocrities  reconcile  such 
sayings  with  their  proverbs.  According  to  the  latter, 
every  lad  who  goes  to  sea  is  an  egregious  ass ;  never  to 
forget  your  umbrella  through  a  long  life  would  seem  a 
higher  and  wiser  flight  of  achievement  than  to  go  smil- 
ing to  the  stake ;  and  so  long  as  you  are  a  bit  of  a  cow- 
ard and  inflexible  in  money  matters,  you  fulfil  the  whole 
duty  of  man. 

It  is  a  still  more  difficult  consideration  for  our  average 
men,  that  while  all  their  teachers,  from  Solomon  down 
to  Benjamin  Franklin  and  the  ungodly  Binney,  have 
inculcated  the  same  ideal  of  manners,  caution,  and  re- 
spectability, those  characters  in  history  who  have  most 
notoriously  flown  in  the  face  of  such  precepts  are  spoken 
of  in  hyperbolical  terms  of  praise,  and  honoured  with 
public  monuments  in  the  streets  of  our  commercial  cen- 
tres. This  is  very  bewildering  to  the  moral  sense.  You 
have  Joan  of  Arc,  who  left  a  humble  but  honest  and 
reputable  livelihood  under  the  eyes  of  her  parents,  to  go 
a-colonelling,  in  the  company  of  rowdy  soldiers,  against 
the  enemies  of  France;  surely  a  melancholy  example  for 
one's  daughters!  And  then  you  have  Columbus,  who 
may  have  pioneered  America,  but,  when  all  is  said,  was 
a  most  imprudent  navigator.  His  life  is  not  the  kind  of 
thing  one  would  like  to  put  into  the  hands  of  young 
people ;  rather,  one  would  do  one's  utmost  to  keep  it 
from  their  knowledge,  as  a  red  flag  of  adventure  and 

52 


CRABBED   AGE  AND   YOUTH 

disintegrating  influence  in  life.  The  time  would  fail  me 
if  I  were  to  recite  all  the  big  names  in  history  whose  ex- 
ploits are  perfectly  irrational  and  even  shocking  to  the 
business  mind.  The  incongruity  is  speaking;  and  I 
imagine  it  must  engender  among  the  mediocrities  a  very 
peculiar  attitude  towards  the  nobler  and  showier  sides 
of  national  life.  They  will  read  of  the  Charge  of  Bala- 
clava in  much  the  same  spirit  as  they  assist  at  a  perform- 
ance of  the  Lyons  Mail.  Persons  of  substance  take  in 
the  Times  and  sit  composedly  in  pit  or  boxes  according 
to  the  degree  of  their  prosperity  in  business.  As  for  the 
generals  who  go  galloping  up  and  down  among  bomb- 
shells in  absurd  cocked  hats  —  as  for  the  actors  who 
raddle  their  faces  and  demean  themselves  for  hire  upon 
the  stage  —  they  must  belong,  thank  God!  to  a  differ- 
ent order  of  beings,  whom  we  watch  as  we  watch  the 
clouds  careering  in  the  windy,  bottomless  inane,  or  read 
about  like  characters  in  ancient  and  rather  fabulous  an- 
nals. Our  offspring  would  no  more  think  of  copying 
their  behaviour,  let  us  hope,  than  of  doffing  their  clothes 
and  painting  themselves  blue  in  consequence  of  certain 
admissions  in  the  first  chapter  of  their  school  history  of 
England. 

Discredited  as  they  are  in  practice,  the  cowardly  prov- 
erbs hold  their  own  in  theory ;  and  it  is  another  instance 
of  the  same  spirit,  that  the  opinions  of  old  men  about 
life  have  been  accepted  as  final.  All  sorts  of  allowances 
are  made  for  the  illusions  of  youth ;  and  none,  or  almost 
none,  for  the  disenchantments  of  age.  It  is  held  to  be 
a  good  taunt,  and  somehow  or  other  to  clinch  the  ques- 
tion logically,  when  an  old  gentleman  waggles  his  head 
and  says:  "Ah,  so  I  thought  when  I  was  your  age." 

53 


"VIRGiNIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

It  is  not  thought  an  answer  at  all,  if  the  young  man  re- 
torts :  "My  venerable  sir,  so  I  shall  most  probably  think 
when  I  am  yours."  And  yet  the  one  is  as  good  as  the 
other :  pass  for  pass,  tit  for  tat,  a  Roland  for  an  Oliver. 

"Opinion  in  good  men,"  says  Milton,  "is  but  know- 
ledge in  the  making."  All  opinions,  properly  so  called, 
are  stages  on  the  road  to  truth.  It  does  not  follow  that 
a  man  will  travel  any  further;  but  if  he  has  really  con- 
sidered the  world  and  drawn  a  conclusion,  he  has  trav- 
elled as  far.  This  does  not  apply  to  formulae  got  by 
rote,  which  are  stages  on  the  road  to  nowhere  but  sec- 
ond childhood  and  the  grave.  To  have  a  catchword  in 
your  mouth  is  not  the  same  thing  as  to  hold  an  opin- 
ion ;  still  less  is  it  the  same  thing  as  to  have  made  one 
for  yourself.  There  are  too  many  of  these  catchwords  in 
the  world  for  people  to  rap  out  upon  you  like  an  oath  and 
by  way  of  an  argument.  They  have  a  currency  as  in- 
tellectual counters;  and  many  respectable  persons  pay 
their  way  with  nothing  else.  They  seem  to  stand  for 
vague  bodies  of  theory  in  the  background.  The  im- 
puted virtue  of  folios  full  of  knockdown  arguments  is 
supposed  to  reside  in  them,  just  as  some  of  the  majesty 
of  the  British  Empire  dwells  in  the  constable's  truncheon. 
They  are  used  in  pure  superstition,  as  old  clodhoppers 
spoil  Latin  by  way  of  an  exorcism.  And  yet  they  are 
vastly  serviceable  for  checking  unprofitable  discussion 
and  stopping  the  mouths  of  babes  and  sucklings.  And 
when  a  young  man  comes  to  a  certain  stage  of  intellec- 
tual growth,  the  examination  of  these  counters  forms  a 
gymnastic  at  once  amusing  and  fortifying  to  the  mind. 

Because  I  have  reached  Paris,  I  am  not  ashamed  of 
having  passed  through  Newhaven  and  Dieppe.     They 

54 


CRABBED   AGE   AND   YOUTH 

were  very  good  places  to  pass  through,  and  I  am  none 
the  less  at  my  destination.  All  my  old  opinions  were 
only  stages  on  the  way  to  the  one  I  now  hold,  as  itself 
is  only  a  stage  on  the  way  to  something  else.  I  am  no 
more  abashed  at  having  been  a  red-hot  Socialist  with  a 
panacea  of  my  own  than  at  having  been  a  sucking  infant. 
Doubtless  the  world  is  quite  right  in  a  million  ways ;  but 
you  have  to  be  kicked  about  a  little  to  convince  you  of 
the  fact.  And  in  the  meanwhile  you  must  do  something, 
be  something,  believe  something.  It  is  not  possible  to 
keep  the  mind  in  a  state  of  accurate  balance  and  blank ; 
and  even  if  you  could  do  so,  instead  of  coming  ultimately 
to  the  right  conclusion,  you  would  be  very  apt  to  remain 
in  a  state  of  balance  and  blank  to  perpetuity.  Even  in 
quite  intermediate  stages,  a  dash  of  enthusiasm  is  not  a 
thing  to  be  ashamed  of  in  the  retrospect :  if  St.  Paul  had 
not  been  a  very  zealous  Pharisee,  he  would  have  been  a 
colder  Christian.  For  my  part,  I  look  back  to  the  time 
when  I  was  a  Socialist  with  something  like  regret  I 
have  convinced  myself  (for  the  moment)  that  we  had 
better  leave  these  great  changes  to  what  we  call  great 
blind  forces;  their  blindness  being  so  much  more  per- 
spicacious than  the  little,  peering,  partial  eyesight  of 
men.  I  seem  to  see  that  my  own  scheme  would  not 
answer;  and  all  the  other  schemes  I  ever  heard  pro- 
pounded would  depress  some  elements  of  goodness  just 
as  much  as  they  encouraged  others.  Now  I  know  that 
in  thus  turning  Conservative  with  years,  I  am  going 
through  the  normal  cycle  of  change  and  travelling  in 
the  common  orbit  of  men's  opinions.  I  submit  to  this, 
as  I  would  submit  to  gout  or  grey  hair,  as  a  concomitant 
of  growing  age  or  else  of  failing  animal  heat ;  but  I  do 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

not  acknowledge  that  it  is  necessarily  a  change  for  the 
better  —  I  daresay  it  is  deplorably  for  the  worse.  I  have 
no  choice  in  the  business,  and  can  no  more  resist  this 
tendency  of  my  mind  than  I  could  prevent  my  boay 
from  beginning  to  totter  and  decay.  If  I  am  spared  (as 
the  phrase  runs)  I  shall  doubtless  outlive  some  trouble- 
some desires;  but  I  am  in  no  hurry  about  that;  nor, 
when  the  time  comes,  shall  I  plume  myself  on  the  im- 
munity. Just  in  the  same  way,  I  do  not  greatly  pride 
myself  on  having  outlived  my  belief  in  the  fairy  tales  of 
Socialism.  Old  people  have  faults  of  their  own ;  they 
tend  to  become  cowardly,  niggardly,  and  suspicious. 
Whether  from  the  growth  of  experience  or  the  decline 
of  animal  heat,  I  see  that  age  leads  to  these  and  certain 
other  faults;  and  it  follows,  of  course,  that  while  in  one 
sense  I  hope  I  am  journeying  towards  the  truth,  in  an- 
other I  am  indubitably  posting  towards  these  forms  and 
sources  of  error. 

As  we  go  catching  and  catching  at  this  or  that  corner 
of  knowledge,  now  getting  a  foresight  of  generous  possi- 
bilities, now  chilled  with  a  glimpse  of  prudence,  we  may 
compare  the  headlong  course  of  our  years  to  a  swift 
torrent  in  which  a  man  is  carried  away;  now  he  is 
dashed  against  a  boulder,  now  he  grapples  for  a  moment 
to  a  trailing  spray ;  at  the  end,  he  is  hurled  out  and  over- 
whelmed in  a  dark  and  bottomless  ocean.  We  have  no 
more  than  glimpses  and  touches;  we  are  torn  away 
from  our  theories;  we  are  spun  round  and  round  and 
shown  this  or  the  other  view  of  life,  until  only  fools  or 
knaves  can  hold  to  their  opinions.  We  take  a  sight  at 
a  condition  in  life,  and  say  we  have  studied  it ;  our  most 
elaborate  view  is  no  more  than  an  impression.     If  we 

56 


CRABBED   AGE  AND   YOUTH 

Tiad  breathing  space,  we  should  take  the  occasion  to 
modify  and  adjust;  but  at  this  breakneck  hurry,  we  are 
no  sooner  boys  than  we  are  adult,  no  sooner  in  love  than 
married  or  jilted,  no  sooner  one  age  than  we  begin  to  be 
another,  and  no  sooner  in  the  fulness  of  our  manhood  than 
we  begin  to  decline  towards  the  grave.  It  is  in  vain  to 
seek  for  consistency  or  expect  clear  and  stable  views  in  a 
medium  so  perturbed  and  fleeting.  This  is  no  cabinet  sci- 
ence, in  which  things  are  tested  to  a  scruple ;  we  theorise 
with  a  pistol  to  our  head ;  we  are  confronted  with  a  new 
set  of  conditions  on  which  we  have  not  only  to  pass  a 
judgment,  but  to  take  action,  before  the  hour  is  at  an  end. 
And  we  cannot  even  regard  ourselves  as  a  constant;  in 
this  flux  of  things,  our  identity  itself  seems  in  a  perpetual 
variation ;  and  not  infrequently  we  find  our  own  disguise 
the  strangest  in  the  masquerade.  In  the  course  of  time, 
we  grow  to  love  things  we  hated  and  hate  things  we 
loved.  Milton  is  not  so  dull  as  he  once  was,  nor  per- 
haps Ainsworth  so  amusing.  It  is  decidedly  harder  to 
climb  trees,  and  not  nearly  so  hard  to  sit  still.  There  is 
no  use  pretending;  even  the  thrice  royal  game  of  hide 
and  seek  has  somehow  lost  in  zest.  All  our  attributes 
are  modified  or  changed ;  and  it  will  be  a  poor  account  of 
us  if  our  views  do  not  modify  and  change  in  a  proportion. 
To  hold  the  same  views  at  forty  as  we  held  at  twenty  is 
to  have  been  stupefied  for  a  score  of  years,  and  take  rank, 
not  as  a  prophet,  but  as  an  unteachable  brat,  well  birched 
and  none  the  wiser.  It  is  as  if  a  ship  captain  should  sail 
to  India  from  the  Port  of  London ;  and  having  brought 
a  chart  of  the  Thames  on  deck  at  his  first  setting  out, 
should  obstinately  use  no  other  for  the  whole  voyage. 
And  mark  you,  it  would  be  no  less  foolish  to  begin  at 

57 


"  VIRG1NIBUS   PUER1SQUE  » 

Gravesend  with  a  chart  of  the  Red  Sea.  Si  Jeunesse 
savait,  si  Vieittesse  pouvait,  is  a  very  pretty  sentiment, 
but  not  necessarily  right.  In  five  cases  out  of  ten,  it  is 
not  so  much  that  the  young  people  do  not  know,  as  that 
they  do  not  choose.  There  is  something  irreverent  in  the 
speculation,  but  perhaps  the  want  of  power  has  more  to 
do  with  the  wise  resolutions  of  age  than  we  are  always 
willing  to  admit.  It  would  be  an  instructive  experiment 
to  make  an  old  man  young  again  and  leave  him  all  his 
savoir.  I  scarcely  think  he  would  put  his  money  in  the 
Savings  Bank  after  all ;  I  doubt  if  he  would  be  such  an  ad- 
mirable son  as  we  are  led  to  expect;  and  as  for  his  con- 
duct in  love,  I  believe  firmly  he  would  out-Herod  Herod, 
and  put  the  whole  of  his  new  compeers  to  the  blush. 
Prudence  is  a  wooden  Juggernaut,  before  whom  Benjamin 
Franklin  walks  with  the  portly  air  of  a  high  priest,  and 
after  whom  dances  many  a  successful  merchant  in  the 
character  of  Atys.  But  it  is  not  a  deity  to  cultivate  in 
youth.  If  a  man  lives  to  any  considerable  age,  it  cannot 
be  denied  that  he  laments  his  imprudences,  but  I  notice 
he  often  laments  his  youth  a  deal  more  bitterly  and  with 
a  more  genuine  intonation. 

It  is  customary  to  say  that  age  should  be  considered, 
because  it  comes  last.  It  seems  just  as  much  to  the 
point,  that  youth  comes  first.  And  the  scale  fairly  kicks 
the  beam,  if  you  go  on  to  add  that  age,  in  a  majority  of 
cases,  never  comes  at  all.  Disease  and  accident  make 
short  work  of  even  the  most  prosperous  persons;  death 
costs  nothing,  and  the  expense  of  a  headstone  is  an  in- 
considerable trifle  to  the  happy  heir.  To  be  suddenly 
snuffed  out  in  the  middle  of  ambitious  schemes,  is 
tragical  enough  at  best ;  but  when  a  man  has  been  grudg- 

58 


CRABBED   AGE  AND   YOUTH 

ing  himself  his  own  life  in  the  meanwhile,  and  saving 
up  everything  for  the  festival  that  was  never  to  be,  it 
becomes  that  hysterically  moving  sort  of  tragedy  which 
lies  on  the  confines  of  farce.  The  victim  is  dead  —  and 
he  has  cunningly  overreached  himself:  a  combination  of 
calamities  none  the  less  absurd  for  being  grim.  To  hus- 
band a  favourite  claret  until  the  batch  turns  sour,  is  not 
at  all  an  artful  stroke  of  policy;  and  how  much  more 
with  a  whole  cellar  —  a  whole  bodily  existence!  Peo- 
ple may  lay  down  their  lives  with  cheerfulness  in  the 
sure  expectation  of  a  blessed  immortality;  but  that  is  a 
different  affair  from  giving  up  youth  with  all  its  admi- 
rable pleasures,  in  the  hope  of  a  better  quality  of  gruel  in 
a  more  than  problematical,  nay,  more  than  improbable, 
old  age.  We  should  not  compliment  a  hungry  man, 
who  should  refuse  a  whole  dinner  and  reserve  all  his 
appetite  for  the  dessert,  before  he  knew  whether  there 
was  to  be  any  dessert  or  not.  If  there  be  such  a  thing 
as  imprudence  in  the  world,  we  surely  have  it  here. 
We  sail  in  leaky  bottoms  and  on  great  and  perilous 
waters ;  and  to  take  a  cue  from  the  dolorous  old  naval 
ballad,  we  have  heard  the  mermaidens  singing,  and 
know  that  we  shall  never  see  dry  land  any  more.  Old 
and  young,  we  are  all  on  our  last  cruise.  If  there  is  a 
fill  of  tobacco  among  the  crew,  for  God's  sake  pass  it 
round,  and  let  us  have  a  pipe  before  we  go ! 

Indeed,  by  the  report  of  our  elders,  this  nervous 
preparation  for  old  age  is  only  trouble  thrown  away. 
We  fall  on  guard,  and  after  all  it  is  a  friend  who  comes 
to  meet  us.  After  the  sun  is  down  and  the  west  faded, 
the  heavens  begin  to  fill  with  shining  stars.  So,  as 
we  grow  old,  a  sort  of  equable  jog-trot  of  feeling  is 

59 


"VIRGIN1BUS   PUER1SQUE" 

substituted  for  the  violent  ups  and  downs  of  passion 
and  disgust;  the  same  influence  that  restrains  our  hopes, 
quiets  our  apprehensions;  if  the  pleasures  are  less  in- 
tense, the  troubles  are  milder  and  more  tolerable;  and 
in  a  word,  this  period  for  which  we  are  asked  to  hoard 
up  everything  as  for  a  time  of  famine,  is,  in  its  own  right, 
the  richest,  easiest,  and  happiest  of  life.  Nay,  by  man- 
aging its  own  work  and  following  its  own  happy  in- 
spiration, youth  is  doing  the  best  it  can  to  endow  the 
leisure  of  age.  A  full,  busy  youth  is  your  only  prelude 
to  a  self-contained  and  independent  age;  and  the  muff 
inevitably  develops  into  the  bore.  There  are  not  many 
Doctor  Johnsons,  to  set  forth  upon  their  first  romantic 
voyage  at  sixty-four.  If  we  wish  to  scale  Mont  Blanc 
or  visit  a  thieves'  kitchen  in  the  East  End,  to  go  down 
in  a  diving  dress  or  up  in  a  balloon,  we  must  be  about 
it  while  we  are  still  young.  It  will  not  do  to  delay 
until  we  are  clogged  with  prudence  and  limping  with 
rheumatism,  and  people  begin  to  ask  us:  "What  does 
Gravity  out  of  bed  ?  "  Youth  is  the  time  to  go  flashing 
from  one  end  of  the  world  to  the  other  both  in  mind 
and  body;  to  try  the  manners  of  different  nations;  to 
hear  the  chimes  at  midnight;  to  see  sunrise  in  town  and 
country;  to  be  converted  at  a  revival;  to  circumnavi- 
gate the  metaphysics,  write  halting  verses,  run  a  mile 
to  see  a  fire,  and  wait  all  day  long  in  the  theatre  to  ap- 
plaud Hernani.  There  is  some  meaning  in  the  old 
theory  about  wild  oats;  and  a  man  who  has  not  had 
his  green-sickness  and  got  done  with  it  for  good,  is  as 
little  to  be  depended  on  as  an  unvaccinated  infant. 
"It  is  extraordinary,"  says  Lord  Beaconsfield,  one  of 
the  brightest  and  best  preserved  of  youths  up  to  the 

60 


CRABBED   AGE  ,AND   YOUTH 

date  of  his  last  novel,1  "it  is  extraordinary  how  hourly 
and  how  violently  change  the  feelings  of  an  inexperi- 
enced young  man."  And  this  mobility  is  a  special 
talent  entrusted  to  his  care ;  a  sort  of  indestructible  vir- 
ginity; a  magic  armour,  with  which  he  can  pass  un- 
hurt through  great  dangers  and  come  unbedaubed  out 
of  the  miriest  passages.  Let  him  voyage,  speculate,  see 
all  that  he  can,  do  all  that  he  may ;  his  soul  has  as  many 
lives  as  a  cat,  he  will  live  in  all  weathers,  and  never  be 
a  halfpenny  the  worse.  Those  who  go  to  the  devil  in 
youth,  with  anything  like  a  fair  chance,  were  probably 
little  worth  saving  from  the  first;  they  must  have  been 
feeble  fellows — creatures  made  of  putty  and  pack-thread, 
without  steel  or  fire,  anger  or  true  joyfulness,  in  their 
composition;  we  may  sympathise  with  their  parents, 
but  there  is  not  much  cause  to  go  into  mourning  for 
themselves ;  for  to  be  quite  honest,  the  weak  brother  is 
the  worst  of  mankind. 

When  the  old  man  waggles  his  head  and  says,  "Ah, 
so  I  thought  when  I  was  your  age,"  he  has  proved  the 
youth's  case.  Doubtless,  whether  from  growth  of  ex- 
perience or  decline  of  animal  heat,  he  thinks  so  no  longer; 
but  he  thought  so  while  he  was  young ;  and  all  men  have 
thought  so  while  they  were  young,  since  there  was  dew 
in  the  morning  or  hawthorn  in  May ;  and  here  is  another 
young  man  adding  his  vote  to  those  of  previous  gener- 
ations and  rivetting  another  link  to  the  chain  of  testi- 
mony. It  is  as  natural  and  as  right  for  a  young  man  to 
be  imprudent  and  exaggerated,  to  live  in  swoops  and 
circles,  and  beat  about  his  cage  like  any  other  wild  thing 
newly  captured,  as  it  is  for  old  men  to  turn  grey,  or 

1Lothair. 
6\ 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

mothers  to  love  their  offspring,  or  heroes  to  die  for 
something  worthier  than  their  lives. 

By  way  of  an  apologue  for  the  aged,  when  they  feel 
more  than  usually  tempted  to  offer  their  advice,  let  me 
recommend  the  following  little  tale.  A  child  who  had 
been  remarkably  fond  of  toys  (and  in  particular  of  lead 
soldiers)  found  himself  growing  to  the  level  of  acknowl- 
edged boyhood  without  any  abatement  of  this  childish 
taste.  He  was  thirteen ;  already  he  had  been  taunted 
for  dallying  overlong  about  the  playbox;  he  had  to  blush 
if  he  was  found  among  his  lead  soldiers ;  the  shades  of 
the  prison-house  were  closing  about  him  with  a  venge- 
ance. There  is  nothing  more  difficult  than  to  put  the 
thoughts  of  children  into  the  language  of  their  elders ; 
but  this  is  the  effect  of  his  meditations  at  this  juncture : 
"Plainly,"  he  said,  "I  must  give  up  my  playthings,  in 
the  meanwhile,  since  I  am  not  in  a  position  to  secure 
myself  against  idle  jeers.  At  the  same  time,  I  am  sure 
that  playthings  are  the  very  pick  of  life ;  all  people  give 
them  up  out  of  the  same  pusillanimous  respect  for  those 
who  are  a  little  older;  and  if  they  do  not  return  to  them 
as  soon  as  they  can,  it  is  only  because  they  grow  stupid 
and  forget.  I  shall  be  wiser ;  I  shall  conform  for  a  little 
to  the  ways  of  their  foolish  world ;  but  so  soon  as  I  have 
made  enough  money,  I  shall  retire  and  shut  myself  up 
among  my  playthings  until  the  day  I  die."  Nay,  as  he 
was  passing  in  the  train  along  the  Esterel  mountains  be- 
tween Cannes  and  Frejus,  he  remarked  a  pretty  house 
in  an  orange  garden  at  the  angle  of  a  bay,  and  decided 
that  this  should  be  his  Happy  Valley.  Astrea  Redux; 
childhood  was  to  come  again !  The  idea  has  an  air  of 
simple  nobility  to  me,  not  unworthy  of  Cincinnatus, 

62 


CRABBED   AGE  AND   YOUTH 

And  yet,  as  the  reader  has  probably  anticipated,  it  is 
never  likely  to  be  carried  into  effect.  There  was  a 
worm  in  the  bud,  a  fatal  error  in  the  premises.  Child- 
hood must  pass  away,  and  then  youth,  as  surely  as  age 
approaches.  The  true  wisdom  is  to  be  always  season- 
able, and  to  change  with  a  good  grace  in  changing  cir- 
cumstances. To  love  playthings  well  as  a  child,  to  lead 
an  adventurous  and  honourable  youth,  and  to  settle  when 
the  time  arrives,  into  a  green  and  smiling  age,  is  to  be  a 
good  artist  in  life  and  deserve  well  of  yourself  and  your 
neighbour. 

You  need  repent  none  of  your  youthful  vagaries.  They 
may  have  been  over  the  score  on  one  side,  just  as  those 
of  age  are  probably  over  the  score  on  the  other.  But 
they  had  a  point;  they  not  only  befitted  your  age  and 
expressed  its  attitude  and  passions,  but  they  had  a  re- 
lation to  what  was  outside  of  you,  and  implied  criticisms 
on  the  existing  state  of  things,  which  you  need  not  allow 
to  have  been  undeserved,  because  you  now  see  that  they 
were  partial.  All  error,  not  merely  verbal,  is  a  strong 
way  of  stating  that  the  current  truth  is  incomplete.  The 
follies  of  youth  have  a  basis  in  sound  reason,  just  as  much 
as  the  embarrassing  questions  put  by  babes  and  suck- 
lings. Their  most  antisocial  acts  indicate  the  defects  of 
our  society.  When  the  torrent  sweeps  the  man  against 
a  boulder,  you  must  expect  him  to  scream,  and  you  need 
not  be  surprised  if  the  scream  is  sometimes  a  theory. 
Shelley,  chafing  at  the  Church  of  England,  discovered 
the  cure  of  all  evils  in  universal  atheism.  Generous  lads 
irritated  at  the  injustices  of  society,  see  nothing  for  it  but 
the  abolishment  of  everything  and  Kingdom  Come  of 
anarchy.    Shelley  was  a  young  fool ;  so  are  these  cock- 

63 


"VIRGINIBUS  PUERISQUE" 

sparrow  revolutionaries.  But  it  is  better  to  be  a  fool  than 
to  be  dead.  It  is  better  to  emit  a  scream  in  the  shape  of 
a  theory  than  to  be  entirely  insensible  to  the  jars  and  in- 
congruities of  life  and  take  everything  as  it  comes  in  a 
forlorn  stupidity.  Some  people  swallow  the  universe 
like  a  pill;  they  travel  on  through  the  world,  like  smil- 
ing images  pushed  from  behind.  For  God's  sake  give 
me  the  young  man  who  has  brains  enough  to  make  a 
fool  of  himself !  As  for  the  others,  the  irony  of  facts 
shall  take  it  out  of  their  hands,  and  make  fools  of  them 
in  downright  earnest,  ere  the  farce  be  over.  There  shall 
be  such  a  mopping  and  a  mowing  at  the  last  day,  and 
such  blushing  and  confusion  of  countenance  for  all  those 
who  have  been  wise  in  their  own  esteem,  and  have  not 
learnt  the  rough  lessons  that  youth  hands  on  to  age.  If 
we  are  indeed  here  to  perfect  and  complete  our  own 
natures,  and  grow  larger,  stronger,  and  more  sympa- 
thetic against  some  nobler  career  in  the  future,  we  had 
all  best  bestir  ourselves  to  the  utmost  while  we  have  the 
time.  To  equip  a  dull,  respectable  person  with  wings 
would  be  but  to  make  a  parody  of  an  angel. 

In  short,  if  youth  is  not  quite  right  in  its  opinions, 
there  is  a  strong  probability  that  age  is  not  much  more 
so.  Undying  hope  is  co-ruler  of  the  human  bosom  with 
infallible  credulity.  A  man  finds  he  has  been  wrong  at 
every  preceding  stage  of  his  career,  only  to  deduce  the 
astonishing  conclusion  that  he  is  at  last  entirely  right. 
Mankind,  after  centuries  of  failure,  are  still  upon  the  eve 
of  a  thoroughly  constitutional  millennium.  Since  we 
have  explored  the  maze  so  long  without  result,  it  fol- 
lows, for  poor  human  reason,  that  we  cannot  have  to 
explore  much  longer;  close  by  must  be  the  centre,  with 

64 


CRABBED   AGE  AND   YOUTH 

a  champagne  luncheon  and  a  piece  of  ornamental  water. 
How  if  there  were  no  centre  at  all,  but  just  one  alley 
after  another,  and  the  whole  world  a  labyrinth  without 
end  or  issue  ? 

I  overheard  the  other  day  a  scrap  of  conversation, 
which  I  take  the  liberty  to  reproduce.  "  What  I  ad- 
vance is  true,"  said  one.  "But  not  the  whole  truth," 
answered  the  other.  "Sir,"  returned  the  first  (and  it 
seemed  to  me  there  was  a  smack  of  Dr.  Johnson  in 
the  speech),  "Sir,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  the  whole 
truth!"  Indeed,  there  is  nothing  so  evident  in  life  as 
that  there  are  two  sides  to  a  question.  History  is  one 
long  illustration.  The  forces  of  nature  are  engaged,  day 
by  day,  in  cudgelling  it  into  our  backward  intelligences. 
We  never  pause  for  a  moment's  consideration,  but  we 
admit  it  as  an  axiom.  An  enthusiast  sways  humanity 
exactly  by  disregarding  this  great  truth,  and  dinning  it 
into  our  ears  that  this  or  that  question  has  only  one 
possible  solution ;  and  your  enthusiast  is  a  fine  florid  fel- 
low, dominates  things  for  a  while  and  shakes  the  world 
out  of  a  doze;  but  when  once  he  is  gone,  an  army  of 
quiet  and  uninfluential  people  set  to  work  to  remind  us 
of  the  other  side  and  demolish  the  generous  imposture. 
While  Calvin  is  putting  everybody  exactly  right  in  his 
Institutes,  and  hot-headed  Knox  is  thundering  in  the 
pulpit,  Montaigne  is  already  looking  at  the  other  side  in 
his  library  in  Perigord,  and  predicting  that  they  will 
find  as  much  to  quarrel  about  in  the  Bible  as  they  had 
found  already  in  the  Church.  Age  may  have  one  side, 
but  assuredly  Youth  has  the  other.  There  is  nothing 
more  certain  than  that  both  are  right,  except  perhaps 
that  both  are  wrong.     Let  them  agree  to  differ;  for  who 

65 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

knows  but  what  agreeing  to  differ  may  not  be  a  form 
of  agreement  rather  than  a  form  of  difference  ? 

I  suppose  it  is  written  that  any  one  who  sets  up  for 
a  bit  of  a  philosopher,  must  contradict  himself  to  his 
very  face.  For  here  have  I  fairly  talked  myself  into 
thinking  that  we  have  the  whole  thing  before  us  at 
last;  that  there  is  no  answer  to  the  mystery,  except 
that  there  are  as  many  as  you  please;  that  there  is  no 
centre  to  the  maze  because,  like  the  famous  sphere,  its 
centre  is  everywhere;  and  that  agreeing  to  differ  with 
every  ceremony  of  politeness,  is  the  only  "one  undis- 
turbed song  of  pure  concent  "to  which  we  are  ever 
likely  to  lend  our  musical  voices. 


66 


AN  APOLOGY  FOR  IDLERS 

"  Bos  well:  We  grow  weary  when  idle. 

"Johnson:  That  is,  sir,  because  others  being  busy,  we  want  com- 
pany; but  if  we  were  idle,  there  would  be  no  growing  weary;  we 
should  all  entertain  one  another." 

JUST  now,  when  every  one  is  bound,  under  pain  of  a 
decree  in  absence  convicting  them  of  /^-respecta- 
bility, to  enter  on  some  lucrative  profession,  and  labour 
therein  with  something  not  far  short  of  enthusiasm,  a 
cry  from  the  opposite  party  who  are  content  when  they 
have  enough,  and  like  to  look  on  and  enjoy  in  the  mean- 
while, savours  a  little  of  bravado  and  gasconade.  And 
yet  this  should  not  be.  Idleness  so  called,  which  does 
not  consist  in  doing  nothing,  but  in  doing  a  great  deal 
not  recognized  in  the  dogmatic  formularies  of  the  ruling 
class,  has  as  good  a  right  to  state  its  position  as  industry 
itself.  It  is  admitted  that  the  presence  of  people  who 
refuse  to  enter  in  the  great  handicap  race  for  sixpenny 
pieces,  is  at  once  an  insult  and  a  disenchantment  for 
those  who  do.  A  fine  fellow  (as  we  see  so  many)  takes 
his  determination,  votes  for  the  sixpences,  and  in  the 
emphatic  Americanism,  "goes  for"  them.  And  while 
such  an  one  is  ploughing  distressfully  up  the  road,  it  is 
not  hard  to  understand  his  resentment,  when  he  per- 
ceives cool  persons  in  the  meadows  by  the  wayside, 

67 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

lying  with  a  handkerchief  over  their  ears  and  a  glass  at 
their  elbow.  Alexander  is  touched  in  a  very  delicate 
place  by  the  disregard  of  Diogenes.  Where  was  the 
glory  of  having  taken  Rome  for  these  tumultuous  bar- 
barians, who  poured  into  the  Senate  house,  and  found 
the  Fathers  sitting  silent  and  unmoved  by  their  success  ? 
It  is  a  sore  thing  to  have  laboured  along  and  scaled  the 
arduous  hilltops,  and  when  all  is  done,  find  humanity 
indifferent  to  your  achievement.  Hence  physicists  con- 
demn the  unphysical ;  financiers  have  only  a  superficial 
toleration  for  those  who  know  little  of  stocks ;  literary 
persons  despise  the  unlettered ;  and  people  of  all  pursuits 
combine  to  disparage  those  who  have  none. 

But  though  this  is  one  difficulty  of  the  subject,  it  is  not 
the  greatest.  You  could  not  be  put  in  prison  for  speak- 
ing against  industry,  but  you  can  be  sent  to  Coventry  for 
speaking  like  a  fool.  The  greatest  difficulty  with  most 
subjects  is  to  do  them  well ;  therefore,  please  to  remember 
this  is  an  apology.  It  is  certain  that  much  may  be  ju- 
diciously argued  in  favour  of  diligence;  only  there  is 
something  to  be  said  against  it,  and  that  is  what,  on  the 
present  occasion,  I  have  to  say.  To  state  one  argument 
is  not  necessarily  to  be  deaf  to  all  others,  and  that  a  man 
has  written  a  book  of  travels  in  Montenegro,  is  no  reason 
why  he  should  never  have  been  to  Richmond. 

It  is  surely  beyond  a  doubt  that  people  should  be  a 
good  deal  idle  in  youth.  For  though  here  and  there  a 
Lord  Macaulay  may  escape  from  school  honours  with  all 
his  wits  about  him,  most  boys  pay  so  dear  for  their  medals 
that  they  never  afterwards  have  a  shot  in  their  locker, 
and  begin  the  world  bankrupt.  And  the  same  holds  true 
during  all  the  time  a  lad  is  educating  himself,  or  suffer- 

68 


AN   APOLOGY   FOR   IDLERS 

ing  others  to  educate  him.  It  must  have  been  a  very 
foolish  old  gentleman  who  addressed  Johnson  at  Oxford 
in  these  words :  "Young  man,  ply  your  book  diligently 
now,  and  acquire  a  stock  of  knowledge;  for  when  years 
come  upon  you,  you  will  find  that  poring  upon  books 
will  be  but  an  irksome  task."  The  old  gentleman 
seems  to  have  been  unaware  that  many  other  things 
besides  reading  grow  irksome,  and  not  a  few  become 
impossible,  by  the  time  a  man  has  to  use  spectacles  and 
cannot  walk  without  a  stick.  Books  are  good  enough 
in  their  own  way,  but  they  are  a  mighty  bloodless  sub- 
stitute for  life.  It  seems  a  pity  to  sit,  like  the  Lady  of 
Shalott,  peering  into  a  mirror,  with  your  back  turned  on 
all  the  bustle  and  glamour  of  reality.  And  if  a  man  reads 
very  hard,  as  the  old  anecdote  reminds  us,  he  will  have 
little  time  for  thoughts. 

If  you  look  back  on  your  own  education,  I  am  sure  it 
will  not  be  the  full,  vivid,  instructive  hours  of  truantry 
that  you  regret;  you  would  rather  cancel  some  lack- 
lustre periods  between  sleep  and  waking  in  the  class. 
For  my  own  part,  I  have  attended  a  good  many  lectures 
in  my  time.  I  still  remember  that  the  spinning  of  a  top 
is  a  case  of  Kinetic  Stability.  I  still  remember  that  Em- 
phyteusis is  not  a  disease,  nor  Stillicide  a  crime.  But 
though  I  would  not  willingly  part  with  such  scraps  of 
science,  I  do  not  set  the  same  store  by  them  as  by  cer- 
tain other  odds  and  ends  that  I  came  by  in  the  open 
street  while  I  was  playing  truant.  This  is  not  the  mo- 
ment to  dilate  on  that  mighty  place  of  education,  which 
was  the  favourite  school  of  Dickens  and  of  Balzac,  and 
turns  out  yearly  many  inglorious  masters  in  the  Science 
of  the  Aspects  of  Life.     Suffice  it  to  say  this :  if  a  lad 

69 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQLJE" 

does  not  learn  in  the  streets,  it  is  because  he  has  no  fac- 
ulty of  learning.  Nor  is  the  truant  always  in  the  streets, 
for  if  he  prefers,  he  may  go  out  by  the  gardened  suburbs 
into  the  country.  He  may  pitch  on  some  tuft  of  lilacs 
over  a  burn,  and  smoke  innumerable  pipes  to  the  tune 
of  the  water  on  the  stones.  A  bird  will  sing  in  the 
thicket.  And  there  he  may  fall  into  a  vein  of  kindly 
thought,  and  see  things  in  a  new  perspective.  Why,  if 
this  be  not  education,  what  is  ?  We  may  conceive  Mr. 
Worldly  Wiseman  accosting  such  an  one,  and  the  con- 
versation that  should  thereupon  ensue : — 

"  How  now,  young  fellow,  what  dost  thou  here?" 

" Truly,  sir,  I  take  mine  ease." 

"  Is  not  this  the  hour  of  the  class  ?  and  should'st  thou 
not  be  plying  thy  Book  with  diligence,  to  the  end  thou 
mayest  obtain  knowledge  ?  " 

"Nay,  but  thus  also  I  follow  after  Learning,  by  your 
leave." 

"  Learning,  quotha !  After  what  fashion,  I  pray  thee  ? 
Is  it  mathematics  ?  " 

"No,  to  be  sure." 

"Is  it  metaphysics?" 

"Nor  that." 

"Is  it  some  language  ?" 

"Nay,  it  is  no  language." 

"Is  it  a  trade?" 

"  Nor  a  trade  neither." 

"Why,  then,  whatis't?" 

"  Indeed,  sir,  as  a  time  may  soon  come  for  me  to  go 
upon  Pilgrimage,  I  am  desirous  to  note  what  is  com- 
monly done  by  persons  in  my  case,  and  where  are  the 
ugliest  Sloughs  and  Thickets  on  the  Road;  as  also,  what 

70 


AN   APOLOGY   FOR  IDLERS 

manner  of  Staff  is  of  the  best  service.  Moreover,  I  lie 
here,  by  this  water,  to  learn  by  root-of-heart  a  lesson 
which  my  master  teaches  me  to  call  Peace,  or  Content- 
ment." 

Hereupon  Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman  was  much  com- 
moved  with  passion,  and  shaking  his  cane  with  a  very 
threatful  countenance,  broke  forth  upon  this  wise: 
"Learning,  quotha!"  said  he;  "I  would  have  all  such 
rogues  scourged  by  the  Hangman !  " 

And  so  he  would  go  his  way,  ruffling  out  his  cravat 
with  a  crackle  of  starch,  like  a  turkey  when  it  spread  its 
feathers. 

Now  this,  of  Mr.  Wiseman's,  is  the  common  opinion. 
A  fact  is  not  called  a  fact,  but  a  piece  of  gossip,  if  it  does 
not  fall  into  one  of  your  scholastic  categories.  An  in- 
quiry must  be  in  some  acknowledged  direction,  with  a 
name  to  go  by ;  or  else  you  are  not  inquiring  at  all,  only 
lounging ;  and  the  work-house  is  too  good  for  you.  It 
is  supposed  that  all  knowledge  is  at  the  bottom  of  a  well, 
or  the  far  end  of  a  telescope.  Sainte-Beuve,  as  he  grew 
older,  came  to  regard  all  experience  as  a  single  great 
book,  in  which  to  study  for  a  few  years  ere  we  go  hence ; 
and  it  seemed  all  one  to  him  whether  you  should  read 
in  Chapter  xx.,  which  is  the  differential  calculus,  or  in 
Chapter  xxxix.,  which  is  hearing  the  band  play  in  the 
gardens.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  an  intelligent  person, 
looking  out  of  his  eyes  and  hearkening  in  his  ears,  with 
a  smile  on  his  face  all  the  time,  will  get  more  true  edu- 
cation than  many  another  in  a  life  of  heroic  vigils.  There 
is  certainly  some  chill  and  arid  knowledge  to  be  found 
upon  the  summits  of  formal  and  laborious  science;  but 
it  is  all  round  about  you,  and  for  the  trouble  of  looking, 

7> 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

that  you  will  acquire  the  warm  and  palpitating  facts 
of  life.  While  others  are  filling  their  memory  with  a 
lumber  of  words,  one-half  of  which  they  will  forget  be- 
fore the  week  be  out,  your  truant  may  learn  some  really 
useful  art:  to  play  the  fiddle,  to  know  a  good  cigar,  or 
to  speak  with  ease  and  opportunity  to  all  varieties  of 
men.  Many  who  have  "plied  their  book  diligently," 
and  know  all  about  some  one  branch  or  another  of  ac- 
cepted lore,  come  out  of  the  study  with  an  ancient  and 
owl-like  demeanour,  and  prove  dry,  stockish,  and  dys- 
peptic in  all  the  better  and  brighter  parts  of  life.  Many 
make  a  large  fortune,  who  remain  underbred  and  pa- 
thetically stupid  to  the  last.  And  meantime  there  goes 
the  idler,  who  began  life  along  with  them  —  by  your 
leave,  a  different  picture.  He  has  had  time  to  take  care 
of  his  health  and  his  spirits ;  he  has  been  a  great  deal  in 
the  open  air,  which  is  the  most  salutary  of  all  things  for 
both  body  and  mind ;  and  if  he  has  never  read  the  great 
Book  in  very  recondite  places,  he  has  dipped  into  it  and 
skimmed  it  over  to  excellent  purpose.  Might  not  the 
student  afford  some  Hebrew  roots,  and  the  business  man 
some  of  his  half-crowns,  for  a  share  of  the  idler's  know- 
ledge of  life  at  large,  and  Art  of  Living  ?  Nay,  and  the 
idler  has  another  and  more  important  quality  than  these. 
I  mean  his  wisdom.  He  who  has  much  looked  on  at 
the  childish  satisfaction  of  other  people  in  their  hobbies, 
will  regard  his  own  with  only  a  very  ironical  indulgence. 
He  will  not  be  heard  among  the  dogmatists.  He  will 
have  a  great  and  cool  allowance  for  all  sorts  of  people 
and  opinions.  If  he  finds  no  out-of-the-way  truths,  he 
will  identify  himself  with  no  very  burning  falsehood.  His 
way  takes  him  along  a  by-road,  not  much  frequented, 

72 


AN   APOLOGY   FOR   IDLERS 

but  very  even  and  pleasant,  which  is  called  Common- 
place Lane,  and  leads  to  the  Belvedere  of  Commonsense. 
Thence  he  shall  command  an  agreeable,  if  no  very  noble 
prospect;  and  while  others  behold  the  East  and  West, 
the  Devil  and  the  Sunrise,  he  will  be  contentedly  aware 
of  a  sort  of  morning  hour  upon  all  sublunary  things,  with 
an  army  of  shadows  running  speedily  and  in  many  dif- 
ferent directions  into  the  great  daylight  of  Eternity.  The 
shadows  and  the  generations,  the  shrill  doctors  and  the 
plangent  wars,  go  by  into  ultimate  silence  and  empti- 
ness ;  but  underneath  all  this,  a  man  may  see,  out  of  the 
Belvedere  windows,  much  green  and  peaceful  landscape; 
many  fi relit  parlours;  good  people  laughing,  drinking, 
and  making  love  as  they  did  before  the  Flood  or  the 
French  Revolution ;  and  the  old  shepherd  telling  his  tale 
under  the  hawthorn. 

Extreme  busyness,  whether  at  school  or  college,  kirk 
or  market,  is  a  symptom  of  deficient  vitality;  and  a 
faculty  for  idleness  implies  a  catholic  appetite  and  a 
strong  sense  of  personal  identity.  There  is  a  sort  of 
dead-alive,  hackneyed  people  about,  who  are  scarcely 
conscious  of  living  except  in  the  exercise  of  some  con- 
ventional occupation.  Bring  these  fellows  into  the  coun- 
try, or  set  them  aboard  ship,  and  you  will  see  how  they 
pine  for  their  desk  or  their  study.  They  have  no  curi- 
osity ;  they  cannot  give  themselves  over  to  random  pro- 
vocations ;  they  do  not  take  pleasure  in  the  exercise  of 
their  faculties  for  its  own  sake;  and  unless  Necessity 
lays  about  them  with  a  stick,  they  will  even  stand  still. 
It  is  no  good  speaking  to  such  folk :  they  cannot  be  idle, 
their  nature  is  not  generous  enough ;  and  they  pass  those 
hours  in  a  sort  of  coma,  which  are  not  dedicated  to  furi- 

73 


"VIRGINIBUS  PUERISQUE" 

ous  moiling  in  the  gold-mill.  When  they  do  not  re- 
quire to  go  to  the  office,  when  they  are  not  hungry  and 
have  no  mind  to  drink,  the  whole  breathing  world  is  a 
blank  to  them.  If  they  have  to  wait  an  hour  or  so  for  a 
train,  they  fall  into  a  stupid  trance  with  their  eyes  open. 
To  see  them,  you  would  suppose  there  was  nothing  to 
look  at  and  no  one  to  speak  with;  you  would  imagine 
they  were  paralysed  or  alienated;  and  yet  very  possibly 
they  are  hard  workers  in  their  own  way,  and  have  good 
eyesight  for  a  flaw  in  a  deed  or  a  turn  of  the  market. 
They  have  been  to  school  and  college,  but  all  the  time 
they  had  their  eye  on  the  medal;  they  have  gone  about 
in  the  world  and  mixed  with  clever  people,  but  all  the 
time  they  were  thinking  of  their  own  affairs.  As  if  a 
man's  soul  were  not  too  small  to  begin  with,  they  have 
dwarfed  and  narrowed  theirs  by  a  life  of  all  work  and 
no  play ;  until  here  they  are  at  forty,  with  a  listless  atten- 
tion, a  mind  vacant  of  all  material  of  amusement,  and  not 
one  thought  to  rub  against  another,  while  they  wait  for 
the  train.  Before  he  was  breeched,  he  might  have 
clambered  on  the  boxes  ;  when  he  was  twenty,  he 
would  have  stared  at  the  girls;  but  now  the  pipe  is 
smoked  out,  the  snuffbox  empty,  and  my  gentleman 
sits  bolt  upright  upon  a  bench,  with  lamentable  eyes. 
This  does  not  appeal  to  me  as  being  Success  in  Life. 

But  it  is  not  only  the  person  himself  who  suffers  from 
his  busy  habits,  but  his  wife  and  children,  his  friends 
and  relations,  and  down  to  the  very  people  he  sits  with 
in  a  railway  carriage  or  an  omnibus.  Perpetual  devo- 
tion to  what  a  man  calls  his  business,  is  only  to  be  sus- 
tained by  perpetual  neglect  of  many  other  things.  And 
it  is  not  by  any  means  certain  that  a  man's  business  is 

74 


AN   APOLOGY   FOR  IDLERS 

the  most  important  thing  he  has  to  do.  To  an  impar- 
tial estimate  it  will  seem  clear  that  many  of  the  wisest, 
most  virtuous,  and  most  beneficent  parts  that  are  to  be 
played  upon  the  Theatre  of  Life  are  filled  by  gratuitous 
performers,  and  pass,  among  the  world  at  large,  as 
phases  of  idleness.  For  in  that  Theatre,  not  only  the 
walking  gentlemen,  singing  chambermaids,  and  diligent 
fiddlers  in  the  orchestra,  but  those  who  look  on  and 
clap  their  hands  from  the  benches,  do  really  play  a  part 
and  fulfil  important  offices  towards  the  general  result. 
You  are  no  doubt  very  dependent  on  the  care  of  your 
lawyer  and  stockbroker,  of  the  guards  and  signalmen 
who  convey  you  rapidly  from  place  to  place,  and  the 
policemen  who  walk  the  streets  for  your  protection; 
but  is  there  not  a  thought  of  gratitude  in  your  heart  for 
certain  other  benefactors  who  set  you  smiling  when 
they  fall  in  your  way,  or  season  your  dinner  with  good 
company  ?  Colonel  Newcome  helped  to  lose  his  friend's 
money;  Fred  Bayham  had  an  ugly  trick  of  borrowing 
shirts;  and  yet  they  were  better  people  to  fall  among 
than  Mr.  Barnes.  And  though  FalstafTwas  neither  sober 
nor  very  honest,  I  think  I  could  name  one  or  two  long- 
faced  Barabbases  whom  the  world  could  better  have 
done  without.  Hazlitt  mentions  that  he  was  more  sen- 
sible of  obligation  to  Northcote,  who  had  never  done 
him  anything  he  could  call  a  service,  than  to  his  whole 
circle  of  ostentatious  friends;  for  he  thought  a  good 
companion  emphatically  the  greatest  benefactor.  I  know 
there  are  people  in  the  world  who  cannot  feel  grateful 
unless  the  favour  has  been  done  them  at  the  cost  of  pain 
and  difficulty.  But  this  is  a  churlish  disposition.  A 
man  may  send  you  six  sheets  of  letter-paper  covered 

75 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

with  the  most  entertaining  gossip,  or  you  may  pass  half 
an  hour  pleasantly,  perhaps  profitably,  over  an  article  of 
his;  do  you  think  the  service  would  be  greater,  if  he 
had  made  the  manuscript  in  his  heart's  blood,  like  a 
compact  with  the  devil  ?  Do  you  really  fancy  you  should 
be  more  beholden  to  your  correspondent,  if  he  had  been 
damning  you  all  the  while  for  your  importunity  ?  Pleas- 
ures are  more  beneficial  than  duties  because,  like  the 
quality  of  mercy,  they  are  not  strained,  and  they  are 
twice  blest.  There  must  always  be  two  to  a  kiss,  and 
there  may  be  a  score  in  a  jest;  but  wherever  there  is  an 
element  of  sacrifice,  the  favour  is  conferred  with  pain, 
and,  among  generous  people,  received  with  confusion. 
There  is  no  duty  we  so  much  underrate  as  the  duty  of 
being  happy.  By  being  happy,  we  sow  anonymous 
benefits  upon  the  world,  which  remain  unknown  even 
to  ourselves,  or  when  they  are  disclosed,  surprise  no- 
body so  much  as  the  benefactor.  The  other  day,  a 
ragged,  barefoot  boy  ran  down  the  street  after  a  mar- 
ble, with  so  jolly  an  air  that  he  set  every  one  he 
passed  into  a  good  humour;  one  of  these  persons, 
who  had  been  delivered  from  more  than  usually  black 
thoughts,  stopped  the  little  fellow  and  gave  him  some 
money  with  this  remark:  "You  see  what  some- 
times comes  of  looking  pleased."  If  he  had  looked 
pleased  before,  he  had  now  to  look  both  pleased  and 
mystified.  For  my  part,  I  justify  this  encouragement 
of  smiling  rather  than  tearful  children;  I  do  not  wish  to 
pay  for  tears  anywhere  but  upon  the  stage;  but  I  am 
prepared  to  deal  largely  in  the  opposite  commodity.  A 
happy  man  or  woman  is  a  better  thing  to  find  than  a 
five-pound  note.     He  or  she  is  a  radiating  focus  of  good- 

76 


AN   APOLOGY   FOR   IDLERS 

will ;  and  their  entrance  into  a  room  is  as  though  another 
candle  had  been  lighted.  We  need  not  care  whether 
they  could  prove  the  forty-seventh  proposition ;  they  do 
a  better  thing  than  that,  they  practically  demonstrate  the 
great  Theorem  of  the  Liveableness  of  Life.  Conse- 
quently, if  a  person  cannot  be  happy  without  remaining 
idle,  idle  he  should  remain.  It  is  a  revolutionary  pre- 
cept; but  thanks  to  hunger  and  the  workhouse,  one  not 
easily  to  be  abused ;  and  within  practical  limits,  it  is  one 
of  the  most  incontestable  truths  in  the  whole  Body  of 
Morality.  Look  at  one  of  your  industrious  fellows  for 
a  moment,  I  beseech  you.  He  sows  hurry  and  reaps 
indigestion ;  he  puts  a  vast  deal  of  activity  out  to  interest, 
and  receives  a  large  measure  of  nervous  derangement  in 
return.  Either  he  absents  himself  entirely  from  all 
fellowship,  and  lives  a  recluse  in  a  garret,  with  carpet 
slippers  and  a  leaden  inkpot;  or  he  comes  among  people 
swiftly  and  bitterly,  in  a  contraction  of  his  whole  nerv- 
ous system,  to  discharge  some  temper  before  he  returns 
to  work.  I  do  not  care  how  much  or  how  well  he 
works,  this  fellow  is  an  evil  feature  in  other  people's 
lives.  They  would  be  happier  if  he  were  dead.  They 
could  easier  do  without  his  services  in  the  Circumlocu- 
tion Office,  than  they  can  tolerate  his  fractious  spirits. 
He  poisons  life  at  the  well-head.  It  is  better  to  be  beg- 
gared out  of  hand  by  a  scapegrace  nephew,  than  daily 
hag-ridden  by  a  peevish  uncle. 

And  what,  in  God's  name,  is  all  this  pother  about? 
For  what  cause  do  they  embitter  their  own  and  other 
people's  lives  ?  That  a  man  should  publish  three  or  thirty 
articles  a  year,  that  he  should  finish  or  not  finish  his 
great  allegorical  picture,  are  questions  of  little  interest  to 

77 


"VIR.GINIBUS   PUERISQyE" 

the  world.  The  ranks  of  life  are  full ;  and  although  a 
thousand  fall,  there  are  always  some  to  go  into  the 
breach.  When  they  told  Joan  of  Arc  she  should  be  at 
home  minding  women's  work,  she  answered  there  were 
plenty  to  spin  and  wash.  And  so,  even  with  your  own 
rare  gifts!  When  nature  is  "  so  careless  of  the  single 
life,"  why  should  we  coddle  ourselves  into  the  fancy 
that  our  own  is  of  exceptional  importance  ?  Suppose 
Shakespeare  had  been  knocked  on  the  head  some  dark 
night  in  Sir  Thomas  Lucy's  preserves,  the  world  would 
have  wagged  on  better  or  worse,  the  pitcher  gone  to  the 
well,  the  scythe  to  the  corn,  and  the  student  to  his  book ; 
and  no  one  been  any  the  wiser  of  the  loss.  There  are 
not  many  works  extant,  if  you  look  the  alternative  all 
over,  which  are  worth  the  price  of  a  pound  of  tobacco  to 
a  man  of  limited  means.  This  is  a  sobering  reflection 
for  the  proudest  of  our  earthly  vanities.  Even  a  tobacco- 
nist may,  upon  consideration,  find  no  great  cause  for 
personal  vainglory  in  the  phrase ;  for  although  tobacco 
is  an  admirable  sedative,  the  qualities  necessary  for 
retailing  it  are  neither  rare  nor  precious  in  themselves. 
Alas  and  alas !  you  may  take  it  how  you  will,  but  the 
services  of  no  single  individual  are  indispensable.  Atlas 
was  just  a  gentleman  with  a  protracted  nightmare !  And 
yet  you  see  merchants  who  go  and  labour  themselves 
into  a  great  fortune  and  thence  into  the  bankruptcy  court ; 
scribblers  who  keep  scribbling  at  little  articles  until  their 
temper  is  a  cross  to  all  who  come  about  them,  as  though 
Pharaoh  should  set  the  Israelites  to  make  a  pin  instead 
of  a  pyramid;  and  fine  young  men  who  work  them- 
selves into  a  decline,  and  are  driven  off  in  a  hearse  with 
white  plumes  upon  it.     Would  you  not  suppose  these 

78 


AN   APOLOGY   FOR   IDLERS 

persons  had  been  whispered,  by  the  Master  of  the  Cere- 
monies, the  promise  of  some  momentous  destiny  ?  and 
that  this  lukewarm  bullet  on  which  they  play  their  farces 
was  the  bull's-eye  and  centrepoint  of  all  the  universe  ? 
And  yet  it  is  not  so.  The  ends  for  which  they  give 
away  their  priceless  youth,  for  all  they  know,  may  be 
chimerical  or  hurtful ;  the  glory  and  riches  they  expect 
may  never  come,  or  may  find  them  indifferent;  and  they 
and  the  world  they  inhabit  are  so  inconsiderable  that  the 
mind  freezes  at  the  thought. 


79 


ORDERED  SOUTH 

BY  a  curious  irony  of  fate,  the  places  to  which  we  are 
sent  when  health  deserts  us  are  often  singularly 
beautiful.  Often,  too,  they  are  places  we  have  visited  in 
former  years,  or  seen  briefly  in  passing  by,  and  kept  ever 
afterwards  in  pious  memory;  and  we  please  ourselves 
with  the  fancy  that  we  shall  repeat  many  vivid  and 
pleasurable  sensations,  and  take  up  again  the  thread  of 
our  enjoyment  in  the  same  spirit  as  we  let  it  fall.  We 
shall  now  have  an  opportunity  of  finishing  many  pleasant 
excursions,  interrupted  of  yore  before  our  curiosity  was 
fully  satisfied.  It  may  be  that  we  have  kept  in  mind, 
during  all  these  years,  the  recollection  of  some  valley 
into  which  we  have  just  looked  down  for  a  moment 
before  we  lost  sight  of  it  in  the  disorder  of  the  hills ;  it 
may  be  that  we  have  lain  awake  at  night,  and  agreeably 
tantalised  ourselves  with  the  thought  of  corners  we  had 
never  turned,  or  summits  we  had  all  but  climbed:  we 
shall  now  be  able,  as  we  tell  ourselves,  to  complete  all 
these  unfinished  pleasures,  and  pass  beyond  the  barriers 
that  confined  our  recollections. 

The  promise  is  so  great,  and  we  are  all  so  easily  led 
away  when  hope  and  memory  are  both  in  one  story, 
that  I  daresay  the  sick  man  is  not  very  inconsolable  when 

80 


ORDERED   SOUTH 

he  receives  sentence  of  banishment,  and  is  inclined  to  re- 
gard his  ill-health  as  not  the  least  fortunate  accident  of 
his  life.  Nor  is  he  immediately  undeceived.  The  stir 
and  speed  of  the  journey,  and  the  restlessness  that  goes 
to  bed  with  him  as  he  tries  to  sleep  between  two  days 
of  noisy  progress,  fever  him,  and  stimulate  his  dull 
nerves  into  something  of  their  old  quickness  and  sensi- 
bility. And  so  he  can  enjoy  the  faint  autumnal  splendour 
of  the  landscape,  as  he  sees  hill  and  plain,  vineyard  and 
forest,  clad  in  one  wonderful  glory  of  fairy  gold,  which 
the  first  great  winds  of  winter  will  transmute,  as  in  the 
fable,  into  withered  leaves.  And  so  too  he  can  enjoy  the 
admirable  brevity  and  simplicity  of  such  little  glimpses 
of  country  and  country  ways  as  flash  upon  him  through 
the  windows  of  the  train ;  little  glimpses  that  have  a  char- 
acter all  their  own ;  sights  seen  as  a  travelling  swallow 
might  see  them  from  the  wing,  or  Iris  as  she  went 
abroad  over  the  land  on  some  Olympian  errand.  Here 
and  there,  indeed,  a  few  children  huzzah  and  wave  their 
hands  to  the  express ;  but  for  the  most  part,  it  is  an  in- 
terruption too  brief  and  isolated  to  attract  much  notice ; 
the  sheep  do  not  cease  from  browsing;  a  girl  sits  bal- 
anced on  the  projecting  tiller  of  a  canal  boat,  so  precari- 
ously that  it  seems  as  if  a  fly  or  the  splash  of  a  leaping 
fish  would  be  enough  to  overthrow  the  dainty  equi- 
librium, and  yet  all  these  hundreds  of  tons  of  coal  and 
wood  and  iron  have  been  precipitated  roaring  past  her 
very  ear,  and  there  is  not  a  start,  not  a  tremor,  not  a  turn 
of  the  averted  head,  to  indicate  that  she  has  been  even 
conscious  of  its  passage.  Herein,  I  think,  lies  the  chief 
attraction  of  railway  travel.  The  speed  is  so  easy,  and 
the  train  disturbs  so  little  the  scenes  through  which  it 

81 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

takes  us,  that  our  heart  becomes  full  of  the  placidity  and 
stillness  of  the  country ;  and  while  the  body  is  borne  for- 
ward in  the  flying  chain  of  carriages,  the  thoughts  alight, 
as  the  humour  moves  them,  at  unfrequented  stations; 
they  make  haste  up  the  poplar  alley  that  leads  towards  the 
town ;  they  are  left  behind  with  the  signalman  as,  shad- 
ing his  eyes  with  his  hand,  he  watches  the  long  train 
sweep  away  into  the  golden  distance. 

Moreover,  there  is  still  before  the  invalid  the  shock 
of  wonder  and  delight  with  which  he  will  learn  that  he 
has  passed  the  indefinable  line  that  separates  South  from 
North.  And  this  is  an  uncertain  moment;  for  some- 
times the  consciousness  is  forced  upon  him  early,  on 
the  occasion  of  some  slight  association,  a  colour,  a 
flower,  or  a  scent;  and  sometimes  not  until,  one  fine 
morning,  he  wakes  up  with  the  southern  sunshine 
peeping  through  the  persiennes,  and  the  southern  patois 
confusedly  audible  below  the  windows.  Whether  it 
come  early  or  late,  however,  this  pleasure  will  not  end 
with  the  anticipation,  as  do  so  many  others  of  the  same 
family.  It  will  leave  him  wider  awake  than  it  found 
him,  and  give  a  new  significance  to  all  he  may  see  for 
many  days  to  come.  There  is  something  in  the  mere 
name  of  the  South  that  carries  enthusiasm  along  with  it. 
At  the  sound  of  the  word,  he  pricks  up  his  ears ;  he  be- 
comes as  anxious  to  seek  out  beauties  and  to  get  by 
heart  the  permanent  lines  and  character  of  the  landscape, 
as  if  he  had  been  told  that  it  was  all  his  own  —  an  es- 
tate out  of  which  he  had  been  kept  unjustly,  and  which 
he  was  now  to  receive  in  free  and  full  possession.  Even 
those  who  have  never  been  there  before  feel  as  if  they 
had  been;  and  everybody  goes  comparing,  and  seeking 

82 


ORDERED  SOUTH 

for  the  familiar,  and  finding  it  with  such  ecstasies  of 
recognition,  that  one  would  think  they  were  coming 
home  after  a  weary  absence,  instead  of  travelling  hourly 
farther  abroad. 

It  is  only  after  he  is  fairly  arrived  and  settled  down  in 
his  chosen  corner,  that  the  invalid  begins  to  understand 
the  change  that  has  befallen  him.  Everything  about  him 
is  as  he  had  remembered,  or  as  he  had  anticipated.  Here, 
at  his  feet,  under  his  eyes,  are  the  olive  gardens  and  the 
blue  sea.  Nothing  can  change  the  eternal  magnificence 
of  form  of  the  naked  Alps  behind  Mentone;  nothing, 
not  even  the  crude  curves  of  the  railway,  can  utterly 
deform  the  suavity  of  contour  of  one  bay  after  another 
along  the  whole  reach  of  the  Riviera.  And  of  all  this, 
he  has  only  a  cold  head  knowledge  that  is  divorced  from 
enjoyment.  He  recognises  with  his  intelligence  that 
this  thing  and  that  thing  is  beautiful,  while  in  his  heart 
of  hearts  he  has  to  confess  that  it  is  not  beautiful  for  him. 
It  is  in  vain  that  he  spurs  his  discouraged  spirit;  in  vain 
that  he  chooses  out  points  of  view,  and  stands  there, 
looking  with  all  his  eyes,  and  waiting  for  some  return 
of  the  pleasure  that  he  remembers  in  other  days,  as  the 
sick  folk  may  have  awaited  the  coming  of  the  angel  at 
the  pool  of  Bethesda.  He  is  like  an  enthusiast  leading 
about  with  him  a  stolid,  indifferent  tourist.  There  is 
some  one  by  who  is  out  of  sympathy  with  the  scene, 
and  is  not  moved  up  to  the  measure  of  the  occasion; 
and  that  some  one  is  himself.  The  world  is  disen- 
chanted for  him.  He  seems  to  himself  to  touch  things 
with  muffled  hands,  and  to  see  them  through  a  veil. 
His  life  becomes  a  palsied  fumbling  after  notes  that  are 
silent  when  he  has  found  and  struck  them.     He  cannot 

83 


"VIRGINIBUS  PUERISQUE" 

recognise  that  this  phlegmatic  and  unimpressionable 
body  with  which  he  now  goes  burthened,  is  the  same 
that  he  knew  heretofore  so  quick  and  delicate  and  alive. 

He  is  tempted  to  lay  the  blame  on  the  very  softness 
and  amenity  of  the  climate,  and  to  fancy  that  in  the  rig- 
ours of  the  winter  at  home,  these  dead  emotions  would 
revive  and  flourish.  A  longing  for  the  brightness  and 
silence  of  fallen  snow  seizes  him  at  such  times.  He  is 
homesick  for  the  hale  rough  weather;  for  the  tracery 
of  the  frost  upon  his  window-panes  at  morning,  the  re- 
luctant descent  of  the  first  flakes,  and  the  white  roofs 
relieved  against  the  sombre  sky.  And  yet  the  stuff  of 
which  these  yearnings  are  made,  is  of  the  flimsiest:  if 
but  the  thermometer  fall  a  little  below  its  ordinary  Med- 
iterranean level,  or  a  wind  come  down  from  the  snow- 
clad  Alps  behind,  the  spirit  of  his  fancies  changes  upon 
the  instant,  and  many  a  doleful  vignette  of  the  grim 
wintry  streets  at  home  returns  to  him,  and  begins  to 
haunt  his  memory.  The  hopeless,  huddled  attitude  of 
tramps  in  doorways;  the  flinching  gait  of  barefoot  chil- 
dren on  the  icy  pavement;  the  sheen  of  the  rainy  streets 
towards  afternoon ;  the  meagre  anatomy  of  the  poor  de- 
fined by  the  clinging  of  wet  garments ;  the  high  canor- 
ous note  of  the  North-easter  on  days  when  the  very 
houses  seem  to  stiffen  with  cold :  these,  and  such  as 
these,  crowd  back  upon  him,  and  mockingly  substitute 
themselves  for  the  fanciful  winter  scenes  with  which  he 
had  pleased  himself  a  while  before.  He  cannot  be  glad 
enough  that  he  is  where  he  is.  If  only  the  others  could 
be  there  also;  if  only  those  tramps  could  lie  down  for  a 
little  in  the  sunshine,  and  those  children  warm  their 
feet,  this  once,  upon  a  kindlier  earth ;  if  only  there  were 

84 


ORDERED  SOUTH 

no  cold  anywhere,  and  no  nakedness,  and  no  hunger; 
if  only  it  were  as  well  with  all  men  as  it  is  with  him ! 

For  it  is  not  altogether  ill  with  the  invalid,  after  all.  If 
it  is  only  rarely  that  anything  penetrates  vividly  into  his 
numbed  spirit,  yet,  when  anything  does,  it  brings  with 
it  a  joy  that  is  all  the  more  poignant  for  its  very  rarity. 
There  is  something  pathetic  in  these  occasional  returns 
of  a  glad  activity  of  heart.  In  his  lowest  hours  he  will 
be  stirred  and  awakened  by  many  such ;  and  they  will 
spring  perhaps  from  very  trivial  sources;  as  a  friend 
once  said  to  me,  the  "spirit  of  delight"  comes  often  on 
small  wings.  For  the  pleasure  that  we  take  in  beauti- 
ful nature  is  essentially  capricious.  It  comes  sometimes 
when  we  least  look  for  it;  and  sometimes,  when  we 
expect  it  most  certainly,  it  leaves  us  to  gape  joylessly 
for  days  together,  in  the  very  home-land  of  the  beauti- 
ful. We  may  have  passed  a  place  a  thousand  times  and 
one;  and  on  the  thousand  and  second  it  will  be  trans- 
figured, and  stand  forth  in  a  certain  splendour  of  reality 
from  the  dull  circle  of  surroundings;  so  that  we  see  it 
"with  a  child's  first  pleasure,"  as  Wordsworth  saw  the 
daffodils  by  the  lake  side.  And  if  this  falls  out  caprici- 
ously with  the  healthy,  how  much  more  so  with  the 
invalid.  Some  day  he  will  find  his  first  violet,  and  be 
lost  in  pleasant  wonder,  by  what  alchemy  the  cold  earth 
of  the  clods,  and  the  vapid  air  and  rain,  can  be  trans- 
muted into  colour  so  rich  and  odour  so  touchingly 
sweet.  Or  perhaps  he  may  see  a  group  of  washer- 
women relieved,  on  a  spit  of  shingle,  against  the  blue 
sea,  or  a  meeting  of  flower-gatherers  in  the  tempered 
daylight  of  an  olive-garden ;  and  something  significant 
or  monumental  in  the  grouping,  something  in  the  har- 

85 


"VIRGIN1BUS   PUERISQUE" 

mony  of  faint  colour  that  is  always  characteristic  of  the 
dress  of  these  southern  women,  will  come  home  to  him 
unexpectedly,  and  awake  in  him  that  satisfaction  with 
which  we  tell  ourselves  that  we  are  the  richer  by  one 
more  beautiful  experience.  Or  it  may  be  something 
even  slighter:  as  when  the  opulence  of  the  sunshine, 
which  somehow  gets  lost  and  fails  to  produce  its  effect 
on  the  large  scale,  is  suddenly  revealed  to  him  by  the 
chance  isolation  —  as  he  changes  the  position  of  his  sun- 
shade—  of  a  yard  or  two  of  roadway  with  its  stones 
and  weeds.  And  then,  there  is  no  end  to  the  infinite 
variety  of  the  olive-yards  themselves.  Even  the  colour 
is  indeterminate  and  continually  shifting:  now  you 
would  say  it  was  green,  now  grey,  now  blue ;  now  tree 
stands  above  tree,  like  "cloud  on  cloud,"  massed  into 
filmy  indistinctness;  and  now,  at  the  wind's  will,  the 
whole  sea  of  foliage  is  shaken  and  broken  up  with  little 
momentary  silverings  and  shadows.  But  every  one 
sees  the  world  in  his  own  way.  To  some  the  glad  mo- 
ment may  have  arrived  on  other  provocations;  and  their 
recollection  may  be  most  vivid  of  the  stately  gait  of 
women  carrying  burthens  on  their  heads ;  of  tropical  ef- 
fects with  canes  and  naked  rock  and  sunlight;  of  the 
relief  of  cypresses;  of  the  troubled,  busy-looking  groups 
of  sea-pines,  that  seem  always  as  if  they  were  being 
wielded  and  swept  together  by  a  whirlwind ;  of  the  air 
coming,  laden  with  virginal  perfumes,  over  the  myrtles 
and  the  scented  underwood;  of  the  empurpled  hills 
standing  up,  solemn  and  sharp,  out  of  the  green-gold 
air  of  the  east  at  evening. 

There  go  many  elements,  without  doubt,  to  the  mak- 
ing of  one  such  moment  of  intense  perception ;  and  it  is 

86 


ORDERED  SOUTH 

on  the  happy  agreement  of  these  many  elements,  on  the 
harmonious  vibration  of  many  nerves,  that  the  whole 
delight  of  the  moment  must  depend.  Who  can  forget 
how,  when  he  has  chanced  upon  some  attitude  of  com- 
plete restfulness,  after  long  uneasy  rolling  to  and  fro  on 
grass  or  heather,  the  whole  fashion  of  the  landscape  has 
been  changed  for  him,  as  though  the  sun  had  just  broken 
forth,  or  a  great  artist  had  only  then  completed,  by  some 
cunning  touch,  the  composition  of  the  picture  ?  And 
not  only  a  change  of  posture  —  a  snatch  of  perfume,  the 
sudden  singing  of  a  bird,  the  freshness  of  some  pulse  of 
air  from  an  invisible  sea,  the  light  shadow  of  a  travel- 
ling cloud,  the  merest  nothing  that  sends  a  little  shiver 
along  the  most  infinitesimal  nerve  of  a  man's  body  — 
not  one  of  the  least  of  these  but  has  a  hand  somehow  in 
the  general  effect,  and  brings  some  refinement  of  its  own 
into  the  character  of  the  pleasure  we  feel. 

And  if  the  external  conditions  are  thus  varied  and 
subtle,  even  more  so  are  those  within  our  own  bodies. 
No  man  can  find  out  the  world,  says  Solomon,  from  be- 
ginning to  end,  because  the  world  is  in  his  heart;  and 
so  it  is  impossible  for  any  of  us  to  understand,  from  be- 
ginning to  end,  that  agreement  of  harmonious  circum- 
stances that  creates  in  us  the  highest  pleasure  of  admi- 
ration, precisely  because  some  of  these  circumstances 
are  hidden  from  us  for  ever  in  the  constitution  of  our 
own  bodies.  After  we  have  reckoned  up  all  that  we 
can  see  or  hear  or  feel,  there  still  remains  to  be  taken 
into  account  some  sensibility  more  delicate  than  usual 
in  the  nerves  affected,  or  some  exquisite  refinement  in 
the  architecture  of  the  brain,  which  is  indeed  to  the 
sense  of  the  beautiful  as  the  eye  or  the  ear  to  the  sense 

87 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

of  hearing  or  sight.  We  admire  splendid  views  and 
great  pictures ;  and  yet  what  is  truly  admirable  is  rather 
the  mind  within  us,  that  gathers  together  these  scattered 
details  for  its  delight,  and  makes  out  of  certain  colours, 
certain  distributions  of  graduated  light  and  darkness, 
that  intelligible  whole  which  alone  we  call  a  picture  or 
a  view.  Hazlitt,  relating  in  one  of  his  essays  how  he 
went  on  foot  from  one  great  man's  house  to  another's  in 
search  of  works  of  art,  begins  suddenly  to  triumph  over 
these  noble  and  wealthy  owners,  because  he  was  more 
capable  of  enjoying  their  costly  possessions  than  they 
were;  because  they  had  paid  the  money  and  he  had  re- 
ceived the  pleasure.  And  the  occasion  is  a  fair  one  for 
self-complacency.  While  the  one  man  was  working  to 
be  able  to  buy  the  picture,  the  other  was  working  to  be 
able  to  enjoy  the  picture.  An  inherited  aptitude  will 
have  been  diligently  improved  in  either  case;  only  the 
one  man  has  made  for  himself  a  fortune,  and  the  other 
has  made  for  himself  a  living  spirit.  It  is  a  fair  occasion 
for  self-complacency,  I  repeat,  when  the  event  shows  a 
man  to  have  chosen  the  better  part,  and  laid  out  his  life 
more  wisely,  in  the  long  run,  than  those  who  have 
credit  for  most  wisdom.  And  yet  even  this  is  not  a 
good  unmixed ;  and  like  all  other  possessions,  although 
in  a  less  degree,  the  possession  of  a  brain  that  has  been 
thus  improved  and  cultivated,  and  made  into  the  prime 
organ  of  a  man's  enjoyment,  brings  with  it  certain  in- 
evitable cares  and  disappointments.  The  happiness  of 
such  an  one  comes  to  depend  greatly  upon  those  fine 
shades  of  sensation  that  heighten  and  harmonise  the 
coarser  elements  of  beauty.  And  thus  a  degree  of  ner- 
vous prostration,  that  to  other  men  would  be  hardly 


ORDERED  SOUTH 

disagreeable,  is  enough  to  overthrow  for  him  the  whole 
fabric  of  his  life,  to  take,  except  at  rare  moments,  the 
edge  off  his  pleasures,  and  to  meet  him  wherever  he 
goes  with  failure,  and  the  sense  of  want,  and  disenchant- 
ment of  the  world  and  life. 

It  is  not  in  such  numbness  of  spirit  only  that  the  life 
of  the  invalid  resembles  a  premature  old  age.  Those 
excursions  that  he  had  promised  himself  to  finish,  prove 
too  long  or  too  arduous  for  his  feeble  body;  and  the 
barrier-hills  are  as  impassable  as  ever.  Many  a  white 
town  that  sits  far  out  on  the  promontory,  many  a  comely 
fold  of  wood  on  the  mountain  side,  beckons  and  allures  his 
imagination  day  after  day,  and  is  yet  as  inaccessible  to  his 
feet  as  the  clefts  and  gorges  of  the  clouds.  The  sense 
of  distance  grows  upon  him  wonderfully;  and  after 
some  feverish  efforts  and  the  fretful  uneasiness  of  the 
first  few  days,  he  falls  contentedly  in  with  the  restric- 
tions of  his  weakness.  His  narrow  round  becomes 
pleasant  and  familiar  to  him  as  the  cell  to  a  contented 
prisoner.  Just  as  he  has  fallen  already  out  of  the  mid 
race  of  active  life,  he  now  falls  out  of  the  little  eddy  that 
circulates  in  the  shallow  waters  of  the  sanatorium.  He 
sees  the  country  people  come  and  go  about  their  every- 
day affairs,  the  foreigners  stream  out  in  goodly  pleasure 
parties;  the  stir  of  man's  activity  is  all  about  him,  as  he 
suns  himself  inertly  in  some  sheltered  corner;  and  he 
looks  on  with  a  patriarchal  impersonality  of  interest, 
such  as  a  man  may  feel  when  he  pictures  to  himself  the 
fortunes  of  his  remote  descendants,  or  the  robust  old 
age  of  the  oak  he  has  planted  over-night. 

In  this  falling  aside,  in  this  quietude  and  desertion  of 
other  men,  there  is  no  inharmonious  prelude  to  the  last 

8g 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

quietude  and  desertion  of  the  grave ;  in  this  dulness  of 
the  senses  there  is  a  gentle  preparation  for  the  final  in- 
sensibility of  death.  And  to  him  the  idea  of  mortality 
comes  in  a  shape  less  violent  and  harsh  than  is  its  wont, 
less  as  an  abrupt  catastrophe  than  as  a  thing  of  infinitesi- 
mal gradation,  and  the  last  step  on  a  long  decline  of  way. 
As  we  turn  to  and  fro  in  bed,  and  every  moment  the  move- 
ments grow  feebler  and  smaller  and  the  attitude  more 
restful  and  easy,  until  sleep  overtakes  us  at  a  stride  and 
we  move  no  more,  so  desire  after  desire  leaves  him; 
day  by  day  his  strength  decreases,  and  the  circle  of  his 
activity  grows  ever  narrower;  and  he  feels,  if  he  is  to 
be  thus  tenderly  weaned  from  the  passion  of  life,  thus 
gradually  inducted  into  the  slumber  of  death,  that  when 
at  last  the  end  comes,  it  will  come  quietly  and  fitly.  If 
anything  is  to  reconcile  poor  spirits  to  the  coming  of 
the  last  enemy,  surely  it  should  be  such  a  mild  approach 
as  this ;  not  to  hale  us  forth  with  violence,  but  to  per- 
suade us  from  a  place  we  have  no  further  pleasure  in. 
It  is  not  so  much,  indeed,  death  that  approaches  as  life 
that  withdraws  and  withers  up  from  round  about  him. 
He  has  outlived  his  own  usefulness,  and  almost  his  own 
enjoyment;  and  if  there  is  to  be  no  recovery;  if  never 
again  will  he  be  young  and  strong  and  passionate,  if  the 
actual  present  shall  be  to  him  always  like  a  thing  read 
in  a  book  or  remembered  out  of  the  far-away  past;  if, 
in  fact,  this  be  veritably  nightfall,  he  will  not  wish 
greatly  for  the  continuance  of  a  twilight  that  only  strains 
and  disappoints  the  eyes,  but  steadfastly  await  the  per- 
fect darkness.  He  will  pray  for  Medea:  when  she 
comes,  let  her  either  rejuvenate  or  slay. 
And  yet  the  ties  that  still  attach  him  to  the  world  are 


ORDERED  SOUTH 

many  and  kindly.  The  sight  of  children  has  a  signi- 
ficance for  him  such  as  it  may  have  for  the  aged  also,  but 
not  for  others.  If  he  has  been  used  to  feel  humanely,  and 
to  look  upon  life  somewhat  more  widely  than  from  the 
narrow  loophole  of  personal  pleasure  and  advancement, 
it  is  strange  how  small  a  portion  of  his  thoughts  will  be 
changed  or  embittered  by  this  proximity  of  death.  He 
knows  that  already,  in  English  counties,  the  sower  fol- 
lows the  ploughman  up  the  face  of  the  field,  and  the 
rooks  follow  the  sower;  and  he  knows  also  that  he  may 
not  live  to  go  home  again  and  see  the  corn  spring  and 
ripen,  and  be  cut  down  at  last,  and  brought  home  with 
gladness.  And  yet  the  future  of  this  harvest,  the  con- 
tinuance of  drought  or  the  coming  of  rain  unseason- 
ably, touch  him  as  sensibly  as  ever.  For  he  has  long 
been  used  to  wait  with  interest  the  issue  of  events  in 
which  his  own  concern  was  nothing;  and  to  be  joyful 
in  a  plenty,  and  sorrowful  for  a  famine,  that  did  not  in- 
crease or  diminish,  by  one  half  loaf,  the  equable  suffi- 
ciency of  his  own  supply.  Thus  there  remain  unaltered 
all  the  disinterested  hopes  for  mankind  and  a  better 
future  which  have  been  the  solace  and  inspiration  of  his 
life.  These  he  has  set  beyond  the  reach  of  any  fate  that 
only  menaces  himself;  and  it  makes  small  difference 
whether  he  die  five  thousand  years,  or  five  thousand 
and  fifty  years,  before  the  good  epoch  for  which  he 
faithfully  labours.  He  has  not  deceived  himself;  he  has 
known  from  the  beginning  that  he  followed  the  pillar 
of  fire  and  cloud,  only  to  perish  himself  in  the  wilder- 
ness, and  that  it  was  reserved  for  others  to  enter  joy- 
fully into  possession  of  the  land.  And  so,  as  everything 
grows  greyer  and  quieter  about  him,  and  slopes  towards 

91 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

extinction,  these  unfaded  visions  accompany  his  sad 
decline,  and  follow  him,  with  friendly  voices  and  hope- 
ful words,  into  the  very  vestibule  of  death.  The  desire 
of  love  or  of  fame  scarcely  moved  him,  in  his  days  of 
health,  more  strongly  than  these  generous  aspirations 
move  him  now;  and  so  life  is  carried  forward  beyond 
life,  and  a  vista  kept  open  for  the  eyes  of  hope,  even  when 
his  hands  grope  already  on  the  face  of  the  impassable. 

Lastly,  he  is  bound  tenderly  to  life  by  the  thought  of 
his  friends;  or  shall  we  not  say  rather,  that  by  theit 
thought  for  him,  by  their  unchangeable  solicitude  and 
love,  he  remains  woven  into  the  very  stuff  of  life,  beyond 
the  power  of  bodily  dissolution  to  undo  ?  In  a  thousand 
ways  will  he  survive  and  be  perpetuated.  Much  of 
Etienne  de  la  Boetie  survived  during  all  the  years  in 
which  Montaigne  continued  to  converse  with  him  on 
the  pages  of  the  ever-delightful  essays.  Much  of  what 
was  truly  Goethe  was  dead  already  when  he  revisited 
places  that  knew  him  no  more,  and  found  no  better  con- 
solation than  the  promise  of  his  own  verses,  that  soon 
he  too  would  be  at  rest.  Indeed,  when  we  think  of 
what  it  is  that  we  most  seek  and  cherish,  and  find  most 
pride  and  pleasure  in  calling  ours,  it  will  sometimes 
seem  to  us  as  if  our  friends,  at  our  decease,  would  suffer 
loss  more  truly  than  ourselves.  As  a  monarch  who  should 
care  more  for  the  outlying  colonies  he  knows  on  the  map 
or  through  the  report  of  his  vicegerents,  than  for  the 
trunk  of  his  empire  under  his  eyes  at  home,  are  we  not 
more  concerned  about  the  shadowy  life  that  we  have  in 
the  hearts  of  others,  and  that  portion  in  their  thoughts 
and  fancies  which,  in  a  certain  far-away  sense,  belongs 
to  us,  than  about  the  real  knot  of  our  identity  —  that 

92 


ORDERED  SOUTH 

central  metropolis  of  self,  of  which  alone  we  are  imme- 
diately aware  —  or  the  diligent  service  of  arteries  and 
veins  and  infinitesimal  activity  of  ganglia,  which  we 
know  (as  we  know  a  proposition  in  Euclid)  to  be  the 
source  and  substance  of  the  whole  ?  At  the  death  of 
every  one  whom  we  love,  some  fair  and  honourable  por- 
tion of  our  existence  falls  away,  and  we  are  dislodged 
from  one  of  these  dear  provinces ;  and  they  are  not,  per- 
haps, the  most  fortunate  who  survive  a  long  series  of 
such  impoverishments,  till  their  life  and  influence  narrow 
gradually  into  the  meagre  limit  of  their  own  spirits,  and 
death,  when  he  comes  at  last,  can  destroy  them  at  one 
blow. 

Note. — To  this  essay  I  must  in  honesty  append  a  word  or  two  of 
qualification ;  for  this  is  one  of  the  points  on  which  a  slightly  greater 
age  teaches  us  a  slightly  different  wisdom: 

A  youth  delights  in  generalities,  and  keeps  loose  from  particular 
obligations;  he  jogs  on  the  footpath  way,  himself  pursuing  butterflies, 
but  courteously  lending  his  applause  to  the  advance  of  the  human  spe- 
cies and  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  justice  and  love.  As  he  grows 
older,  he  begins  to  think  more  narrowly  of  man's  action  in  the  general, 
and  perhaps  more  arrogantly  of  his  own  in  the  particular.  He  has  not 
that  same  unspeakable  trust  in  what  he  would  have  done  had  he  been 
spared,  seeing  finally  that  that  would  have  been  little;  but  he  has  afar 
higher  notion  of  the  blank  that  he  will  make  by  dying.  A  young  man 
feels  himself  one  too  many  in  the  world;  his  is  a  painful  situation:  he 
has  no  calling;  no  obvious  utility;  no  ties,  but  to  his  parents,  and  these 
he  is  sure  to  disregard.  1  do  not  think  that  a  proper  allowance  has  been 
made  for  this  true  cause  of  suffering  in  youth ;  but  by  the  mere  fact  of 
a  prolonged  existence,  we  outgrow  either  the  fact  or  else  the  feeling. 
Either  we  become  so  callously  accustomed  to  our  own  useless  figure  in 
the  world,  or  else  —  and  this,  thank  God,  in  the  majority  of  cases — we 
so  collect  about  us  the  interest  or  the  love  of  our  fellows,  so  multiply 
our  effective  part  in  the  affairs  of  life,  that  we  need  to  entertain  no 
longer  the  question  of  our  right  to  be. 

91 


<*  VIRGINIBUS  PUERISQy E  " 

And  so  in  the  majority  of  cases,  a  man  who  fancies  himself  dying, 
will  get  cold  comfort  from  the  very  youthful  view  expressed  in  this 
essay.  He,  as  a  living  man,  has  some  to  help,  some  to  love,  some  to 
correct;  it  may  be,  some  to  punish.  These  duties  cling,  not  upon  hu- 
manity, but  upon  the  man  himself.  It  is  he,  not  another,  who  is  one 
woman's  son  and  a  second  woman's  husband  and  a  third  woman's 
father.  That  life  which  began  so  small,  has  now  grown,  with  a  myriad 
filaments,  into  the  lives  of  others.  It  is  not  indispensable;  another  will 
take  the  place  and  shoulder  the  discharged  responsibility;  but  the  bet- 
ter the  man  and  the  nobler  his  purposes,  the  more  will  he  be  tempted 
to  regret  the  extinction  of  his  powers  and  the  deletion  of  his  personality. 
To  have  lived  a  generation,  is  not  only  to  have  grown  at  home  in  that 
perplexing  medium,  but  to  have  assumed  innumerable  duties.  To  die 
at  such  an  age,  has,  for  all  but  the  entirely  base,  something  of  the  air 
of  a  betrayal.  A  man  does  not  only  reflect  upon  what  he  might  have 
done  in  a  future  that  is  never  to  be  his;  but  beholding  himself  so  early 
a  deserter  from  the  fight,  he  eats  his  heart  for  the  good  he  might  have 
done  already.  To  have  been  so  useless  and  now  to  lose  all  hope  of 
being  useful  any  more  —  there  it  is  that  death  and  memory  assail  him. 
And  even  if  mankind  shall  go  on,  founding  heroic  cities,  practising  he- 
roic virtues,  rising  steadily  from  strength  to  strength ;  even  if  his  work 
shall  be  fulfilled,  his  friends  consoled,  his  wife  remarried  by  a  better 
than  he;  how  shall  this  alter,  in  one  jot,  his  estimation  of  a  career 
which  was  his  only  business  in  this  world,  which  was  so  fitfully  pur- 
sued, and  which  is  now  so  ineffectively  to  end? 


94 


^S  TRIPLEX 

THE  changes  wrought  by  death  are  in  themselves  so 
sharp  and  final,  and  so  terrible  and  melancholy 
in  their  consequences,  that  the  thing  stands  alone  in 
man's  experience,  and  has  no  parallel  upon  earth.  It 
outdoes  all  other  accidents  because  it  is  the  last  of  them. 
Sometimes  it  leaps  suddenly  upon  its  victims,  like  a 
Thug;  sometimes  it  lays  a  regular  siege  and  creeps  upon 
their  citadel  during  a  score  of  years.  And  when  the 
business  is  done,  there  is  sore  havoc  made  in  other  peo- 
ple's lives,  and  a  pin  knocked  out  by  which  many  sub- 
sidiary friendships  hung  together.  There  are  empty 
chairs,  solitary  walks,  and  single  beds  at  night.  Again, 
in  taking  away  our  friends,  death  does  not  take  them 
away  utterly,  but  leaves  behind  a  mocking,  tragical,  and 
soon  intolerable  residue,  which  must  be  hurriedly  con- 
cealed. Hence  a  whole  chapter  of  sights  and  customs 
striking  to  the  mind,  from  the  pyramids  of  Egypt  to  the 
gibbets  and  dule  trees  of  mediaeval  Europe.  The  poor- 
est persons  have  a  bit  of  pageant  going  towards  the 
tomb ;  memorial  stones  are  set  up  over  the  least  mem- 
orable; and,  in  order  to  preserve  some  show  of  respect 
for  what  remains  of  our  old  loves  and  friendships,  we 
must  accompany  it  with  much  grimly  ludicrous  cere- 

95 


"VIRGIN1BUS   PUERISQUE" 

monial,  and  the  hired  undertaker  parades  before  the 
door.  All  this,  and  much  more  of  the  same  sort,  ac- 
companied by  the  eloquence  of  poets,  has  gone  a  great 
way  to  put  humanity  in  error;  nay,  in  many  philoso- 
phies the  error  has  been  embodied  and  laid  down  with 
every  circumstance  of  logic ;  although  in  real  life  the 
bustle  and  swiftness,  in  leaving  people  little  time  to 
think,  have  not  left  them  time  enough  to  go  danger- 
ously wrong  in  practice. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  although  few  things  are  spoken  of 
with  more  fearful  whisperings  than  this  prospect  of 
death,  few  have  less  influence  on  conduct  under  healthy 
circumstances.  We  have  all  heard  of  cities  in  South 
America  built  upon  the  side  of  fiery  mountains,  and 
how,  even  in  this  tremendous  neighbourhood,  the  in- 
habitants are  not  a  jot  more  impressed  by  the  solemnity 
of  mortal  conditions  than  if  they  were  delving  gardens 
in  the  greenest  corner  of  England.  There  are  serenades 
and  suppers  and  much  gallantry  among  the  myrtles 
overhead ;  and  meanwhile  the  foundation  shudders  un- 
derfoot, the  bowels  of  the  mountain  growl,  and  at  any 
moment  living  ruin  may  leap  sky-high  into  the  moon- 
light, and  tumble  man  and  his  merry-making  in  the 
dust.  In  the  eyes  of  very  young  people,  and  very  dull 
old  ones,  there  is  something  indescribably  reckless  and 
desperate  in  such  a  picture.  It  seems  not  credible  that 
respectable  married  people,  with  umbrellas,  should  find 
appetite  for  a  bit  of  supper  within  quite  a  long  distance 
of  a  fiery  mountain ;  ordinary  life  begins  to  smell  of 
high-handed  debauch  when  it  is  carried  on  so  close  to  a 
catastrophe;  and  even  cheese  and  salad,  it  seems,  could 
hardly  be  relished  in  such  circumstances  without  some- 

96 


MS  TRIPLEX 

thing  like  a  defiance  of  the  Creator.  It  should  be  a  place 
for  nobody  but  hermits  dwelling  in  prayer  and  macera- 
tion, or  mere  born-devils  drowning  care  in  a  perpetual 
carouse. 

And  yet,  when  one  comes  to  think  upon  it  calmly, 
the  situation  of  these  South  American  citizens  forms  only 
a  very  pale  figure  for  the  state  of  ordinary  mankind. 
This  world  itself,  travelling  blindly  and  swiftly  in  over- 
crowded space,  among  a  million  other  worlds  travelling 
blindly  and  swiftly  in  contrary  directions,  may  very  well 
come  by  a  knock  that  would  set  it  into  explosion  like  a 
penny  squib.  And  what,  pathologically  looked  at,  is 
the  human  body  with  all  its  organs,  but  a  mere  bagful 
of  petards  ?  The  least  of  these  is  as  dangerous  to  the 
whole  economy  as  the  ship's  powder-magazine  to  the 
ship;  and  with  every  breath  we  breathe,  and  every  meal 
we  eat,  we  are  putting  one  or  more  of  them  in  peril.  If 
we  clung  as  devotedly  as  some  philosophers  pretend  we 
do  to  the  abstract  idea  of  life,  or  were  half  as  frightened 
as  they  make  out  we  are,  for  the  subversive  accident 
that  ends  it  all,  the  trumpets  might  sound  by  the  hour 
and  no  one  would  follow  them  into  battle  —  the  blue- 
peter  might  fly  at  the  truck,  but  who  would  climb  into 
a  sea-going  ship  ?  Think  (if  these  philosophers  were 
right)  with  what  a  preparation  of  spirit  we  should  af- 
front the  daily  peril  of  the  dinner-table :  a  deadlier  spot 
than  any  battle-field  in  history,  where  the  far  greater 
proportion  of  our  ancestors  have  miserably  left  their 
bones!  What  woman  would  ever  be  lured  into  mar- 
riage, so  much  more  dangerous  than  the  wildest  sea  ? 
And  what  would  it  be  to  grow  old  ?  For,  after  a  certain 
distance,  every  step  we  take  in  life  we  find  the  ice  grow- 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

ing  thinner  below  our  feet,  and  all  around  us  and  behind 
us  we  see  our  contemporaries  going  through.  By  the 
time  a  man  gets  well  into  the  seventies,  his  continued 
existence  is  a  mere  miracle;  and  when  he  lays  his  old 
bones  in  bed  for  the  night,  there  is  an  overwhelming 
probability  that  he  will  never  see  the  day.  Do  the  old 
men  mind  it,  as  a  matter  of  fact  ?  Why,  no.  They 
were  never  merrier;  they  have  their  grog  at  night,  and 
tell  the  raciest  stories ;  they  hear  of  the  death  of  people 
about  their  own  age,  or  even  younger,  not  as  if  it  was 
a  grisly  warning,  but  with  a  simple  childlike  pleasure  at 
having  outlived  some  one  else;  and  when  a  draught 
might  puff  them  out  like  a  guttering  candle,  or  a  bit  of 
a  stumble  shatter  them  like  so  much  glass,  their  old 
hearts  keep  sound  and  unaffrighted,  and  they  go  on, 
bubbling  with  laughter,  through  years  of  man's  age 
compared  to  which  the  valley  at  Balaclava  was  as  safe 
and  peaceful  as  a  village  cricket-green  on  Sunday.  It 
may  fairly  be  questioned  (if  we  look  to  the  peril  only) 
whether  it  was  a  much  more  daring  feat  for  Curtius  to 
plunge  into  the  gulf,  than  for  any  old  gentleman  of 
ninety  to  doff  his  clothes  and  clamber  into  bed. 

Indeed,  it  is  a  memorable  subject  for  consideration, 
with  what  unconcern  and  gaiety  mankind  pricks  on 
along  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death.  The  whole 
way  is  one  wilderness  of  snares,  and  the  end  of  it,  for 
those  who  fear  the  last  pinch,  is  irrevocable  ruin.  And 
yet  we  go  spinning  through  it  all,  like  a  party  for  the 
Derby.  Perhaps  the  reader  remembers  one  of  the  hu- 
morous devices  of  the  deified  Caligula:  how  he  en- 
couraged a  vast  concourse  of  holiday-makers  on  to  his 
bridge  over  Baise  bay ;  and  when  they  were  in  the  height 

98 


>ES  TRIPLEX 

of  their  enjoyment,  turned  loose  the  Praetorian  guards 
among  the  company,  and  had  them  tossed  into  the  sea. 
This  is  no  bad  miniature  of  the  dealings  of  nature  with 
the  transitory  race  of  man.  Only,  what  a  chequered 
picnic  we  have  of  it,  even  while  it  lasts !  and  into  what 
great  waters,  not  to  be  crossed  by  any  swimmer,  God's 
pale  Praetorian  throws  us  over  in  the  end ! 

We  live  the  time  that  a  match  flickers;  we  pop  the 
cork  of  a  ginger-beer  bottle,  and  the  earthquake  swal- 
lows us  on  the  instant.  Is  it  not  odd,  is  it  not  incon- 
gruous, is  it  not,  in  the  highest  sense  of  human  speech, 
incredible,  that  we  should  think  so  highly  of  the  ginger- 
beer,  and  regard  so  little  the  devouring  earthquake? 
The  love  of  Life  and  the  fear  of  Death  are  two  famous 
phrases  that  grow  harder  to  understand  the  more  we 
think  about  them.  It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  an  im- 
mense proportion  of  boat  accidents  would  never  hap- 
pen if  people  held  the  sheet  in  their  hands  instead  of 
making  it  fast;  and  yet,  unless  it  be  some  martinet  of  a 
professional  mariner  or  some  landsman  with  shattered 
nerves,  every  one  of  God's  creatures  makes  it  fast.  A 
strange  instance  of  man's  unconcern  and  brazen  bold- 
ness in  the  face  of  death  ! 

We  confound  ourselves  with  metaphysical  phrases, 
which  we  import  into  daily  talk  with  noble  inappro- 
priateness.  We  have  no  idea  of  what  death  is,  apart 
from  its  circumstances  and  some  of  its  consequences  to 
others ;  and  although  we  have  some  experience  of  living, 
there  is  not  a  man  on  earth  who  has  flown  so  high  into 
abstraction  as  to  have  any  practical  guess  at  the  mean- 
ing of  the  word  life.  All  literature,  from  Job  and  Omar 
Khayyam  to  Thomas  Carlyle  or  Walt  Whitman,  is  but  an 

99 


"V1RGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

attempt  to  look  upon  the  human  state  with  such  large- 
ness of  view  as  shall  enable  us  to  rise  from  the  consider- 
ation of  living  to  the  Definition  of  Life.  And  our  sages 
give  us  about  the  best  satisfaction  in  their  power  when 
they  say  that  it  is  a  vapour,  or  a  show,  or  made  out 
of  the  same  stuff  with  dreams.  Philosophy,  in  its 
more  rigid  sense,  has  been  at  the  same  work  for  ages ; 
and  after  a  myriad  bald  heads  have  wagged  over  the 
problem,  and  piles  of  words  have  been  heaped  one  upon 
another  into  dry  and  cloudy  volumes  without  end,  phil- 
osophy has  the  honour  of  laying  before  us,  with  modest 
pride,  her  contribution  towards  the  subject  :  that  life  is 
a  Permanent  Possibility  of  Sensation.  Truly  a  fine  re- 
sult !  A  man  may  very  well  love  beef,  or  hunting,  or 
a  woman ;  but  surely,  surely,  not  a  Permanent  Possibil- 
ity of  Sensation !  He  may  be  afraid  of  a  precipice,  or  a 
dentist,  or  a  large  enemy  with  a  club,  or  even  an  under- 
taker's man ;  but  not  certainly  of  abstract  death.  We 
may  trick  with  the  word  life  in  its  dozen  senses  until 
we  are  weary  of  tricking;  we  may  argue  in  terms  of  all 
the  philosophies  on  earth,  but  one  fact  remains  true 
throughout  —  that  we  do  not  love  life,  in  the  sense  that 
we  are  greatly  preoccupied  about  its  conservation ;  that 
we  do  not,  properly  speaking,  love  life  at  all,  but  living. 
Into  the  views  of  the  least  careful  there  will  enter  some 
degree  of  providence;  no  man's  eyes  are  fixed  entirely 
on  the  passing  hour;  but  although  we  have  some  antici- 
pation of  good  health,  good  weather,  wine,  active  em- 
ployment, love,  and  self-approval,  the  sum  of  these  an- 
ticipations does  not  amount  to  anything  like  a  general 
view  of  life's  possibilities  and  issues;  nor  are  those  who 
cherish  them  most  vividly,  at  all  the  most  scrupulous  of 


yES   TRIPLEX 

their  personal  safety.  To  be  deeply  interested  in  the  ac- 
cidents of  our  existence,  to  enjoy  keenly  the  mixed  tex- 
ture of  human  experience,  rather  leads  a  man  to  disregard 
precautions,  and  risk  his  neck  against  a  straw.  For 
surely  the  love  of  living  is  stronger  in  an  Alpine  climber 
roping  over  a  peril,  or  a  hunter  riding  merrily  at  a  stiff 
fence,  than  in  a  creature  who  lives  upon  a  diet  and  walks 
a  measured  distance  in  the  interest  of  his  constitution. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  very  vile  nonsense  talked 
upon  both  sides  of  the  matter:  tearing  divines  reducing 
life  to  the  dimensions  of  a  mere  funeral  procession,  so 
short  as  to  be  hardly  decent;  and  melancholy  unbe- 
lievers yearning  for  the  tomb  as  if  it  were  a  world  too 
far  away.  Both  sides  must  feel  a  little  ashamed  of  their 
performances  now  and  again  when  they  draw  in  their 
chairs  to  dinner.  Indeed,  a  good  meal  and  a  bottle  of 
wine  is  an  answer  to  most  standard  works  upon  the 
question.  When  a  man's  heart  warms  to  his  viands, 
he  forgets  a  great  deal  of  sophistry,  and  soars  into  a 
rosy  zone  of  contemplation.  Death  may  be  knocking 
at  the  door,  like  the  Commander's  statue;  we  have 
something  else  in  hand,  thank  God,  and  let  him  knock. 
Passing  bells  are  ringing  all  the  world  over.  All  the 
world  over,  and  every  hour,  some  one  is  parting  com- 
pany with  all  his  aches  and  ecstasies.  For  us  also  the 
trap  is  laid.  But  we  are  so  fond  of  life  that  we  have 
no  leisure  to  entertain  the  terror  of  death.  It  is  a  honey- 
moon with  us  all  through,  and  none  of  the  longest. 
Small  blame  to  us  if  we  give  our  whole  hearts  to  this 
glowing  bride  of  ours,  to  the  appetites,  to  honour,  to 
the  hungry  curiosity  of  the  mind,  to  the  pleasure  of  the 
eyes  in  nature,  and  the  pride  of  our  own  nimble  bodies. 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

We  all  of  us  appreciate  the  sensations ;  but  as  for  car- 
ing about  the  Permanence  of  the  Possibility,  a  man's 
head  is  generally  very  bald,  and  his  senses  very  dull, 
before  he  comes  to  that.  Whether  we  regard  life  as  a 
lane  leading  to  a  dead  wall — a  mere  bag's  end,  as  the 
French  say  —  or  whether  we  think  of  it  as  a  vestibule  or 
gymnasium,  where  we  wait  our  turn  and  prepare  our 
faculties  for  some  more  noble  destiny;  whether  we 
thunder  in  a  pulpit,  or  pule  in  little  atheistic  poetry- 
books,  about  its  vanity  and  brevity;  whether  we  look 
justly  for  years  of  health  and  vigour,  or  are  about  to 
mount  into  a  Bath-chair,  as  a  step  towards  the  hearse ; 
in  each  and  all  of  these  views  and  situations  there  is  but 
one  conclusion  possible :  that  a  man  should  stop  his  ears 
against  paralysing  terror,  and  run  the  race  that  is  set  be- 
fore him  with  a  single  mind.  No  one  surely  could  have 
recoiled  with  more  heartache  and  terror  from  the  thought 
of  death  than  our  respected  lexicographer;  and  yet  we 
know  how  little  it  affected  his  conduct,  how  wisely  and 
boldly  he  walked,  and  in  what  a  fresh  and  lively  vein 
he  spoke  of  life.  Already  an  old  man,  he  ventured  on 
his  Highland  tour;  and  his  heart,  bound  with  triple 
brass,  did  not  recoil  before  twenty-seven  individual  cups 
of  tea.  As  courage  and  intelligence  are  the  two  quali- 
ties best  worth  a  good  man's  cultivation,  so  it  is  the  first 
part  of  intelligence  to  recognise  our  precarious  estate  in 
life,  and  the  first  part  of  courage  to  be  not  at  all  abashed 
before  the  fact.  A  frank  and  somewhat  headlong  car- 
riage, not  looking  too  anxiously  before,  not  dallying  in 
maudlin  regret  over  the  past,  stamps  the  man  who  is 
well  armoured  for  this  world. 

And  not  only  well  armoured  for  himself,  but  a  good 


/ES   TRIPLEX 

friend  and  a  good  citizen  to  boot.  We  do  not  go  to 
cowards  for  tender  dealing ;  there  is  nothing  so  cruel  as 
panic ;  the  man  who  has  least  fear  for  his  own  carcass, 
has  most  time  to  consider  others.  That  eminent  chemist 
who  took  his  walks  abroad  in  tin  shoes,  and  subsisted 
wholly  upon  tepid  milk,  had  all  his  work  cut  out  for  him 
in  considerate  dealings  with  his  own  digestion.  So 
soon  as  prudence  has  begun  to  grow  up  in  the  brain,  like 
a  dismal  fungus,  it  finds  its  first  expression  in  a  paralysis 
of  generous  acts.  The  victim  begins  to  shrink  spiritually ; 
he  develops  a  fancy  for  parlours  with  a  regulated  tem- 
perature, and  takes  his  morality  on  the  principle  of  tin 
shoes  and  tepid  milk.  The  care  of  one  important  body 
or  soul  becomes  so  engrossing,  that  all  the  noises  of  the 
outer  world  begin  to  come  thin  and  faint  into  the  parlour 
with  the  regulated  temperature;  and  the  tin  shoes  go 
equably  forward  over  blood  and  rain.  To  be  overwise 
is  to  ossify ;  and  the  scruple-monger  ends  by  standing 
stockstill.  Now  the  man  who  has  his  heart  on  his 
sleeve,  and  a  good  whirling  weathercock  of  a  brain,  who 
reckons  his  life  as  a  thing  to  be  dashingly  used  and 
cheerfully  hazarded,  makes  a  very  different  acquaintance 
of  the  world,  keeps  all  his  pulses  going  true  and  fast,  and 
gathers  impetus  as  he  runs,  until,  if  he  be  running  to- 
wards anything  better  than  wildfire,  he  may  shoot  up  and 
become  a  constellation  in  the  end.  Lord  look  after  his 
health,  Lord  have  a  care  of  his  soul,  says  he;  and  he  has 
at  the  key  of  the  position,  and  swashes  through  incon- 
gruity and  peril  towards  his  aim.  Death  is  on  all  sides 
of  him  with  pointed  batteries,  as  he  is  on  all  sides  of  all 
of  us;  unfortunate  surprises  gird  him  round;  mim- 
mouthed  friends  and  relations  hold  up  their  hands  in 

103 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

quite  a  little  elegiacal  synod  about  his  path :  and  what 
cares  he  for  all  this  ?  Being  a  true  lover  of  living,  a 
fellow  with  something  pushing  and  spontaneous  in  his 
inside,  he  must,  like  any  other  soldier,  in  any  other  stir- 
ring, deadly  warfare,  push  on  at  his  best  pace  until  he 
touch  the  goal.  "A  peerage  or  Westminster  Abbey! " 
cried  Nelson  in  his  bright,  boyish,  heroic  manner.  These 
are  great  incentives;  not  for  any  of  these,  but  for  the 
plain  satisfaction  of  living,  of  being  about  their  business 
in  some  sort  or  other,  do  the  brave,  serviceable  men  of 
every  nation  tread  down  the  nettle  danger,  and  pass  fly- 
ingly  over  all  the  stumbling-blocks  of  prudence.  Think 
of  the  heroism  of  Johnson,  think  of  that  superb  indiffer- 
ence to  mortal  limitation  that  set  him  upon  his  diction- 
ary, and  carried  him  through  triumphantly  until  the  end! 
Who,  if  he  were  wisely  considerate  of  things  at  large, 
would  ever  embark  upon  any  work  much  more  consider- 
able than  a  halfpenny  post  card  ?  Who  would  project  a 
serial  novel,  after  Thackeray  and  Dickens  had  each  fallen 
in  mid-course  ?  Who  would  find  heart  enough  to  begin 
to  live,  if  he  dallied  with  the  consideration  of  death  ? 

And,  after  all,  what  sorry  and  pitiful  quibbling  all  this 
is !  To  forego  all  the  issues  of  living  in  a  parlour  with  a 
regulated  temperature  —  as  if  that  were  not  to  die  a 
hundred  times  over,  and  for  ten  years  at  a  stretch !  As 
if  it  were  not  to  die  in  one's  own  lifetime,  and  without 
even  the  sad  immunities  of  death!  As  if  it  were  not  to 
die,  and  yet  be  the  patient  spectators  of  our  own  piti- 
able change !  The  Permanent  Possibility  is  preserved, : 
but  the  sensations  carefully  held  at  arm's  length,  as  if 
one  kept  a  photographic  plate  in  a  dark  chamber.  It  is 
better  to  lose  health  like  a  spendthrift  than  to  waste  it 

104 


AS  TRIPLEX 

like  a  miser.  It  is  better  to  live  and  be  done  with  it, 
than  to  die  daily  in  the  sickroom.  By  all  means  begin 
your  folio;  even  if  the  doctor  does  not  give  you  a  year, 
even  if  he  hesitates  about  a  month,  make  one  brave  push 
and  see  what  can  be  accomplished  in  a  week.  It  is  not 
only  in  finished  undertakings  that  we  ought  to  honour 
useful  labour.  A  spirit  goes  out  of  the  man  who  means 
execution,  which  outlives  the  most  untimely  ending. 
All  who  have  meant  good  work  with  their  whole  hearts, 
have  done  good  work,  although  they  may  die  before 
they  have  the  time  to  sign  it.  Every  heart  that  has  beat 
strong  and  cheerfully  has  left  a  hopeful  impulse  behind 
it  in  the  world,  and  bettered  the  tradition  of  mankind. 
And  even  if  death  catch  people,  like  an  open  pitfall,  and 
in  mid-career,  laying  out  vast  projects,  and  planning 
monstrous  foundations,  flushed  with  hope,  and  their 
mouths  full  of  boastful  language,  they  should  be  at  once 
tripped  up  and  silenced :  is  there  not  something  brave  and 
spirited  in  such  a  termination  ?  and  does  not  life  go  down 
with  a  better  grace,  foaming  in  full  body  over  a  preci- 
pice, than  miserably  straggling  to  an  end  in  sandy  del- 
tas ?  When  the  Greeks  made  their  fine  saying  that 
those  whom  the  gods  love  die  young,  I  cannot  help  be- 
lieving they  had  this  sort  of  death  also  in  their  eye. 
For  surely,  at  whatever  age  it  overtake  the  man,  this  is  to 
die  young.  Death  has  not  been  suffered  to  take  so  much 
as  an  illusion  from  his  heart.  In  the  hot-fit  of  life,  a-tip- 
toe  on  the  highest  point  of  being,  he  passes  at  a  bound 
on  to  the  other  side.  The  noise  of  the  mallet  and  chisel 
is  scarcely  quenched,  the  trumpets  are  hardly  done  blow- 
ing, when,  trailing  with  him  clouds  of  glory,  this  happy- 
starred,  full-blooded  spirit  shoots  into  the  spiritual  land. 

105 


EL    DORADO 

IT  seems  as  if  a  great  deal  were  attainable  in  a  world 
where  there  are  so  many  marriages  and  decisive 
battles,  and  where  we  all,  at  certain  hours  of  the  day, 
and  with  great  gusto  and  despatch,  stow  a  portion  of 
victuals  finally  and  irretrievably  into  the  bag  which  con- 
tains us.  And  it  would  seem  also,  on  a  hasty  view, 
that  the  attainment  of  as  much  as  possible  was  the  one 
goal  of  man's  contentious  life.  And  yet,  as  regards  the 
spirit,  this  is  but  a  semblance.  We  live  in  an  ascend- 
ing scale  when  we  live  happily,  one  thing  leading  to 
another  in  an  endless  series.  There  is  always  a  new 
horizon  for  onward-looking  men,  and  although  we 
dwell  on  a  small  planet,  immersed  in  petty  business  and 
not  enduring  beyond  a  brief  period  of  years,  we  are  so 
constituted  that  our  hopes  are  inaccessible,  like  stars, 
and  the  term  of  hoping  is  prolonged  until  the  term  of 
life.  To  be  truly  happy  is  a  question  of  how  we  begin 
and  not  of  how  we  end,  of  what  we  want  and  not  of 
what  we  have.  An  aspiration  is  a  joy  for  ever,  a  pos- 
session as  solid  as  a  landed  estate,  a  fortune  which  we 
can  never  exhaust  and  which  gives  us  year  by  year  a 
revenue  of  pleasurable  activity.  To  have  many  of  these 
is  to  be  spiritually  rich.     Life  is  only  a  very  dull  and  ill— 

106 


EL  DORADO 

directed  theatre  unless  we  have  some  interests  in  the 
piece;  and  to  those  who  have  neither  art  nor  science, 
the  world  is  a  mere  arrangement  of  colours,  or  a  rough 
footway  where  they  may  very  well  break  their  shins. 
It  is  in  virtue  of  his  own  desires  and  curiosities  that  any 
man  continues  to  exist  with  even  patience,  that  he  is 
charmed  by  the  look  of  things  and  people,  and  that  he 
wakens  every  morning  with  a  renewed  appetite  for 
work  and  pleasure.  Desire  and  curiosity  are  the  two 
eyes  through  which  he  sees  the  world  in  the  most  en- 
chanted colours:  it  is  they  that  make  women  beautiful 
or  fossils  interesting:  and  the  man  may  squander  his 
estate  and  come  to  beggary,  but  if  he  keeps  these  two 
amulets  he  is  still  rich  in  the  possibilities  of  pleasure. 
Suppose  he  could  take  one  meal  so  compact  and  com- 
prehensive that  he  should  never  hunger  any  more;  sup- 
pose him,  at  a  glance,  to  take  in  all  the  features  of  the 
world  and  allay  the  desire  for  knowledge;  suppose  him 
to  do  the  like  in  any  province  of  experience  —  would  not 
that  man  be  in  a  poor  way  for  amusement  ever  after  ? 

One  who  goes  touring  on  foot  with  a  single  volume 
in  his  knapsack  reads  with  circumspection,  pausing  often 
to  reflect,  and  often  laying  the  book  down  to  contem- 
plate the  landscape  or  the  prints  in  the  inn  parlour;  for 
he  fears  to  come  to  an  end  of  his  entertainment,  and  be 
left  companionless  on  the  last  stages  of  his  journey.  A 
young  fellow  recently  finished  the  works  of  Thomas 
Carlyle,  winding  up,  if  we  remember  aright,  with  the 
ten  note-books  upon  Frederick  the  Great.  "What!" 
cried  the  young  fellow,  in  consternation,  "is  there  no 
more  Carlyle  ?  Am  I  left  to  the  daily  papers  ?  "  A  more 
celebrated  instance  is  that  of  Alexander,  who  wept  bit- 

107 


"VIRG1NIBUS   PUER1SQUE" 

terly  because  he  had  no  more  worlds  to  subdue.  And 
when  Gibbon  had  finished  the  Decline  and  Fall,  he  had 
only  a  few  moments  of  joy;  and  it  was  with  a  "  sober 
melancholy  "  that  he  parted  from  his  labours. 

Happily  we  all  shoot  at  the  moon  with  ineffectual  ar- 
rows ;  our  hopes  are  set  on  inaccessible  El  Dorado ;  we 
come  to  an  end  of  nothing  here  below.  Interests  are 
only  plucked  up  to  sow  themselves  again,  like  mustard. 
You  would  think,  when  the  child  was  born,  there  would 
be  an  end  to  trouble;  and  yet  it  is  only  the  beginning 
of  fresh  anxieties;  and  when  you  have  seen  it  through 
its  teething  and  its  education,  and  at  last  its  marriage, 
alas !  it  is  only  to  have  new  fears,  new  quivering  sensi- 
bilities, with  every  day;  and  the  health  of  your  chil- 
dren's children  grows  as  touching  a  concern  as  that  of 
your  own.  Again,  when  you  have  married  your  wife, 
you  would  think  you  were  got  upon  a  hilltop,  and 
might  begin  to  go  downward  by  an  easy  slope.  But 
you  have  only  ended  courting  to  begin  marriage.  Fal- 
ling in  love  and  winning  love  are  often  difficult  tasks  to 
overbearing  and  rebellious  spirits;  but  to  keep  in  love 
is  also  a  business  of  some  importance,  to  which  both 
man  and  wife  must  bring  kindness  and  goodwill.  The 
true  love  story  commences  at  the  altar,  when  there  lies 
before  the  married  pair  a  most  beautiful  contest  of  wis- 
dom and  generosity,  and  a  life-long  struggle  towards  an 
unattainable  ideal.  Unattainable  ?  Ay,  surely  unattain- 
able, from  the  very  fact  that  they  are  two  instead  of  one. 

"Of  making  books  there  is  no  end,"  complained  the 
Preacher;  and  did  not  perceive  how  highly  he  was 
praising  letters  as  an  occupation.  There  is  no  end,  in- 
deed, to  making  books  or  experiments,  or  to  travel,  or 

1 08 


EL   DORADO 

to  gathering  wealth.  Problem  gives  rise  to  problem. 
We  may  study  for  ever,  and  we  are  never  as  learned  as 
we  would.  We  have  never  made  a  statue  worthy  of 
our  dreams.  And  when  we  have  discovered  a  conti- 
nent, or  crossed  a  chain  of  mountains,  it  is  only  to  find 
another  ocean  or  another  plain  upon  the  further  side. 
In  the  infinite  universe  there  is  room  for  our  swiftest 
diligence  and  to  spare.  It  is  not  like  the  works  of  Car- 
lyle,  which  can  be  read  to  an  end.  Even  in  a  corner  of 
it,  in  a  private  park,  or  in  the  neighbourhood  of  a  single 
hamlet,  the  weather  and  the  seasons  keep  so  deftly  chang- 
ing that  although  we  walk  there  for  a  lifetime  there  will 
be  always  something  new  to  startle  and  delight  us. 

There  is  only  one  wish  realisable  on  the  earth;  only 
one  thing  that  can  be  perfectly  attained :  Death.  And 
from  a  variety  of  circumstances  we  have  no  one  to  tell 
us  whether  it  be  worth  attaining. 

A  strange  picture  we  make  on  our  way  to  our  chi- 
maeras,  ceaselessly  marching,  grudging  ourselves  the 
time  for  rest;  indefatigable,  adventurous  pioneers.  It  is 
true  that  we  shall  never  reach  the  goal ;  it  is  even  more 
than  probable  that  there  is  no  such  place;  and  if  we 
lived  for  centuries  and  were  endowed  with  the  powers 
of  a  god,  we  should  find  ourselves  not  much  nearer 
what  we  wanted  at  the  end.  O  toiling  hands  of  mortals ! 
O  unwearied  feet,  travelling  ye  know  not  whither! 
Soon,  soon,  it  seems  to  you,  you  must  come  forth  on 
some  conspicuous  hilltop,  and  but  a  little  way  further, 
against  the  setting  sun,  descry  the  spires  of  El  Dorado. 
Little  do  ye  know  your  own  blessedness ;  for  to  travel 
hopefully  is  a  better  thing  than  to  arrive,  and  the  true 
success  is  to  labour. 

109 


THE  ENGLISH  ADMIRALS 

"Whether  it  be  wise  in  men  to  do  such  actions  or  no,  I  am  sure  it 
is  so  in  States  to  honour  them." — Sir  William  Temple. 

THERE  is  one  story  of  the  wars  of  Rome  which  I  have 
always  very  much  envied  for  England.  Germanicus 
was  going  down  at  the  head  of  the  legions  into  a  dan- 
gerous river  —  on  the  opposite  bank  the  woods  were  full 
of  Germans  —  when  there  flew  out  seven  great  eagles 
which  seemed  to  marshal  the  Romans  on  their  way; 
they  did  not  pause  or  waver,  but  disappeared  into  the 
forest  where  the  enemy  lay  concealed.  "Forward!" 
cried  Germanicus,  with  a  fine  rhetorical  inspiration, 
"  Forward!  and  follow  the  Roman  birds."  It  would  be 
a  very  heavy  spirit  that  did  not  give  a  leap  at  such  a 
signal,  and  a  very  timorous  one  that  continued  to  have 
any  doubt  of  success.  To  appropriate  the  eagles  as 
fellow-countrymen  was  to  make  imaginary  allies  of  the 
forces  of  nature;  the  Roman  Empire  and  its  military 
fortunes,  and  along  with  these  the  prospects  of  those 
individual  Roman  legionaries  now  fording  a  river  in 
Germany,  looked  altogether  greater  and  more  hope- 
ful. It  is  a  kind  of  illusion  easy  to  produce.  A  particular 
shape  of  cloud,  the  appearance  of  a  particular  star,  the 
holiday  of  some  particular  saint,  anything  in  short  to  re- 
mind the  combatants  of  patriotic  legends  or  old  suc- 
cesses, may  be  enough  to  change  the  issue  of  a  pitched 


THE  ENGLISH   ADMIRALS 

battle ;   for  it  gives  to  the  one  party  a  feeling  that  Right 
and  the  larger  interests  are  with  them. 

If  an  Englishman  wishes  to  have  such  a  feeling,  it 
must  be  about  the  sea.  The  lion  is  nothing  to  us ;  he 
has  not  been  taken  to  the  hearts  of  the  people,  and 
naturalised  as  an  English  emblem.  We  know  right  well 
that  a  lion  would  fall  foul  of  us  as  grimly  as  he  would  of 
a  Frenchman  or  a  Moldavian  Jew,  and  we  do  not  carry 
him  before  us  in  the  smoke  of  battle.  But  the  sea  is  our 
approach  and  bulwark;  it  has  been  the  scene  of  our 
greatest  triumphs  and  dangers;  and  we  are  accustomed 
in  lyrical  strains  to  claim  it  as  our  own.  The  prostrat- 
ing experiences  of  foreigners  between  Calais  and  Dover 
have  always  an  agreeable  side  to  English  prepossessions. 
A  man  from  Bedfordshire,  who  does  not  know  one  end 
of  the  ship  from  the  other  until  she  begins  to  move, 
swaggers  among  such  persons  with  a  sense  of  hereditary 
nautical  experience.  To  suppose  yourself  endowed  with 
natural  parts  for  the  sea  because  you  are  the  countryman 
of  Blake  and  mighty  Nelson,  is  perhaps  just  as  unwar- 
rantable as  to  imagine  Scotch  extraction  a  sufficient 
guarantee  that  you  will  look  well  in  a  kilt.  But  the 
feeling  is  there,  and  seated  beyond  the  reach  of  argument. 
We  should  consider  ourselves  unworthy  of  our  descent 
if  we  did  not  share  the  arrogance  of  our  progenitors,  and 
please  ourselves  with  the  pretension  that  the  sea  is  Eng- 
lish. Even  where  it  is  looked  upon  by  the  guns  and 
battlements  of  another  nation  we  regard  it  as  a  kind  of 
English  cemetery,  where  the  bones  of  our  seafaring 
fathers  take  their  rest  until  the  last  trumpet;  for  I  sup- 
pose no  other  nation  has  lost  as  many  ships,  or  sent  as 
many  brave  fellows  to  the  bottom. 


"V1RGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

There  is  nowhere  such  a  background  for  heroism  as 
the  noble,  terrifying,  and  picturesque  conditions  of  some 
of  our  sea  fights.  Hawke's  battle  in  the  tempest,  and 
Aboukir  at  the  moment  when  the  French  Admiral  blew 
up,  reach  the  limit  of  what  is  imposing  to  the  imagina- 
tion. And  our  naval  annals  owe  some  of  their  interest 
to  the  fantastic  and  beautiful  appearance  of  old  warships 
and  the  romance  that  invests  the  sea  and  everything 
sea-going  in  the  eyes  of  English  lads  on  a  half-holiday 
at  the  coast.  Nay,  and  what  we  know  of  the  misery 
between  decks  enhances  the  bravery  of  what  was  done 
by  giving  it  something  for  contrast.  We  like  to  know 
that  these  bold  and  honest  fellows  contrived  to  live,  and 
to  keep  bold  and  honest,  among  absurd  and  vile  sur- 
roundings. No  reader  can  forget  the  description  of  the 
Thunder  in  Roderick  Random :  the  disorderly  tyranny ; 
the  cruelty  and  dirt  of  officers  and  men ;  deck  after  deck, 
each  with  some  new  object  of  offence;  the  hospital, 
where  the  hammocks  were  huddled  together  with  but 
fourteen  inches  space  for  each;  the  cockpit,  far  under 
water,  where,  "  in  an  intolerable  stench,"  the  spectacled 
steward  kept  the  accounts  of  the  different  messes ;  and 
the  canvas  enclosure,  six  feet  square,  in  which  Morgan 
made  flip  and  salmagundi,  smoked  his  pipe,  sang  his 
Welsh  songs,  and  swore  his  queer  Welsh  imprecations. 
There  are  portions  of  this  business  on  board  the  Thunder 
over  which  the  reader  passes  lightly  and  hurriedly,  like 
a  traveller  in  a  malarious  country.  It  is  easy  enough  to 
understand  the  opinion  of  Dr.  Johnson:  ''Why,  sir," 
he  said,  "no  man  will  be  a  sailor  who  has  contrivance 
enough  to  get  himself  into  a  jail."  You  would  fancy 
any  one's  spirit  would  die  out  under  such  an  accumula- 

112 


THE   ENGLISH   ADMIRALS 

tion  of  darkness,  noisomeness,  and  injustice,  above  all 
when  he  had  not  come  there  of  his  own  free  will,  but 
under  the  cutlasses  and  bludgeons  of  the  press-gang. 
But  perhaps  a  watch  on  deck  in  the  sharp  sea  air  put  a 
man  on  his  mettle  again ;  a  battle  must  have  been  a  cap- 
ital relief;  and  prize-money,  bloodily  earned  and  grossly 
squandered,  opened  the  doors  of  the  prison  for  a  twink- 
ling. Somehow  or  other,  at  least,  this  worst  of  possi- 
ble lives  could  not  overlie  the  spirit  and  gaiety  of  our 
sailors ;  they  did  their  duty  as  though  they  had  some  in- 
terest in  the  fortune  of  that  country  which  so  cruelly  op- 
pressed them,  they  served  their  guns  merrily  when  it 
came  to  fighting,  and  they  had  the  readiest  ear  for  a  bold, 
honourable  sentiment,  of  any  class  of  men  the  world 
ever  produced. 

Most  men  of  high  destinies  have  high-sounding  names. 
Pym  and  Habakkuk  may  do  pretty  well,  but  they  must 
not  think  to  cope  with  the  Cromwells  and  Isaiahs.  And 
you  could  not  find  a  better  case  in  point  than  that  of  the 
English  Admirals.  Drake  and  Rooke  and  Hawke  are 
picked  names  for  men  of  execution.  Frobisher,  Rod- 
ney, Boscawen,  Foul- Weather  Jack  Byron,  are  all  good 
to  catch  the  eye  in  a  page  of  a  naval  history.  Cloudes- 
ley  Shovel  is  a  mouthful  of  quaint  and  sounding  syllables. 
Benbow  has  a  bulldog  quality  that  suits  the  man's  char- 
acter, and  it  takes  us  back  to  those  English  archers  who 
were  his  true  comrades  for  plainness,  tenacity,  and  pluck. 
Raleigh  is  spirited  and  martial,  and  signifies  an  act  of 
bold  conduct  in  the  field.  It  is  impossible  to  judge  of 
Blake  or  Nelson,  no  names  current  among  men  being 
worthy  of  such  heroes.  But  still  it  is  odd  enough,  and 
very  appropriate  in  this  connection,  that  the  latter  was 

113 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

greatly  taken  with  his  Sicilian  title.  "  The  signification, 
perhaps,  pleased  him,"  says  Southey;  "Duke  of  Thun- 
der was  what  in  Dahomey  would  have  been  called  a 
strong  name  ;  it  was  to  a  sailor's  taste,  and  certainly  to 
no  man  could  it  be  more  applicable."  Admiral  in  itself  is 
one  of  the  most  satisfactory  of  distinctions ;  it  has  a  noble 
sound  and  a  very  proud  history ;  and  Columbus  thought 
so  highly  of  it,  that  he  enjoined  his  heirs  to  sign  them- 
selves by  that  title  as  long  as  the  house  should  last. 

But  it  is  the  spirit  of  the  men,  and  not  their  names, 
that  I  wish  to  speak  about  in  this  paper.  That  spirit  is 
truly  English;  they,  and  not  Tennyson's  cotton-spinners 
or  Mr.  D'Arcy  Thompson's  Abstract  Bagman,  are  the  true 
and  typical  Englishmen.  There  may  be  more  head  of 
bagmen  in  the  country,  but  human  beings  are  reckoned 
by  number  only  in  political  constitutions.  And  the  Ad- 
mirals are  typical  in  the  full  force  of  the  word.  They 
are  splendid  examples  of  virtue,  indeed,  but  of  a  virtue 
in  which  most  Englishmen  can  claim  a  moderate  share; 
and  what  we  admire  in  their  lives  is  a  sort  of  apotheosis 
of  ourselves.  Almost  everybody  in  our  land,  except 
humanitarians  and  a  few  persons  whose  youth  has  been 
depressed  by  exceptionally  aesthetic  surroundings,  can 
understand  and  sympathise  with  an  Admiral  or  a  prize- 
fighter. I  do  not  wish  to  bracket  Benbow  and  Tom 
Cribb ;  but,  depend  upon  it,  they  are  practically  brack- 
eted for  admiration  in  the  minds  of  many  frequenters  of 
ale-houses.  If  you  told  them  about  Germanicus  and  the 
eagles,  or  Regulus  going  back  to  Carthage,  they  would 
very  likely  fall  asleep ;  but  tell  them  about  Harry  Pearce 
and  Jem  Belcher,  or  about  Nelson  and  the  Nile,  and  they 
put  down  their  pipes  to  listen.    I  have  by  me  a  copy  of 

114 


THE   ENGLISH    ADMIRALS 

Boxtana,  on  the  fly-leaves  of  which  a  youthful  member 
of  the  fancy  kept  a  chronicle  of  remarkable  events  and 
an  obituary  of  great  men.  Here  we  find  piously  chron- 
icled the  demise  of  jockeys,  watermen,  and  pugilists  — 
Johnny  Moore,  of  the  Liverpool  Prize  Ring;  Tom  Spring, 
aged  fifty-six ;  ' '  Pierce  Egan,  senior,  writer  of  Boxtana 
and  other  sporting  works"  —  and  among  all  these,  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  !  If  Benbow  had  lived  in  the  time 
of  this  annalist,  do  you  suppose  his  name  would  not 
have  been  added  to  the  glorious  roll  ?  In  short,  we  do 
not  all  feel  warmly  towards  Wesley  or  Laud,  we  cannot 
all  take  pleasure  in  Paradise  Lost ;  but  there  are  certain 
common  sentiments  and  touches  of  nature  by  which  the 
whole  nation  is  made  to  feel  kinship.  A  little  while  ago 
everybody,  from  Hazlitt  and  John  Wilson  down  to  the 
imbecile  creature  who  scribbled  his  register  on  the  fly- 
leaves of  Boxtana,  felt  a  more  or  less  shamefaced  satis- 
faction in  the  exploits  of  prize-fighters.  And  the  exploits 
of  the  Admirals  are  popular  to  the  same  degree,  and  tell 
in  all  ranks  of  society.  Their  sayings  and  doings  stir 
English  blood  like  the  sound  of  a  trumpet;  and  if  the 
Indian  Empire,  the  trade  of  London,  and  all  the  outward 
and  visible  ensigns  of  our  greatness  should  pass  away, 
we  should  still  leave  behind  us  a  durable  monument  of 
what  we  were  in  these  sayings  and  doings  of  the  Eng- 
lish Admirals. 

Duncan,  lying  off  the  Texel  with  his  own  flagship, 
the  Venerable,  and  only  one  other  vessel,  heard  that  the 
whole  Dutch  fleet  was  putting  to  sea.  He  told  Captain 
Hotham  to  anchor  alongside  of  him  in  the  narrowest 
part  of  the  channel,  and  fight  his  vessel  till  she  sank. 
"  I  have  taken  the  depth  of  the  water,"  added  he,  "and 

115 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

when  the  Venerable  goes  down,  my  flag  will  still  fly." 
And  you  observe  this  is  no  naked  Viking  in  a  prehistoric 
period;  but  a  Scotch  member  of  Parliament,  with  a 
smattering  of  the  classics,  a  telescope,  a  cocked  hat  of 
great  size,  and  flannel  underclothing.  In  the  same  spirit, 
Nelson  went  into  Aboukir  with  six  colours  flying;  so 
that  even  if  five  were  shot  away,  it  should  not  be  imag- 
ined he  had  struck.  He  too  must  needs  wear  his  four 
stars  outside  his  Admiral's  frock,  to  be  a  butt  for  sharp- 
shooters. "In  honour  I  gained  them,"  he  said  to  ob- 
jectors, adding  with  sublime  illogicality,  "in  honour  I 
will  die  with  them. "  Captain  Douglas  of  the  Royal  Oak, 
when  the  Dutch  fired  his  vessel  in  the  Thames,  sent  his 
men  ashore,  but  was  burned  along  with  her  himself 
rather  than  desert  his  post  without  orders.  Just  then, 
perhaps  the  Merry  Monarch  was  chasing  a  moth  round 
the  supper-table  with  the  ladies  of  his  court.  When 
Raleigh  sailed  into  Cadiz,  and  all  the  forts  and  ships 
opened  fire  on  him  at  once,  he  scorned  to  shoot  a  gun, 
and  made  answer  with  a  flourish  of  insulting  trumpets. 
I  like  this  bravado  better  than  the  wisest  dispositions  to 
insure  victory ;  it  comes  from  the  heart  and  goes  to  it. 
God  has  made  nobler  heroes,  but  he  never  made  a  finer 
gentleman  than  Walter  Raleigh.  And  as  our  Admirals 
were  full  of  heroic  superstitions,  and  had  a  strutting  and 
vainglorious  style  of  fight,  so  they  discovered  a  startling 
eagerness  for  battle,  and  courted  war  like  a  mistress. 
When  the  news  came  to  Essex  before  Cadiz  that  the  at- 
tack had  been  decided,  he  threw  his  hat  into  the  sea. 
It  is  in  this  way  that  a  schoolboy  hears  of  a  half-holiday ; 
but  this  was  a  bearded  man  of  great  possessions  who 
had  just  been  allowed  to  risk  his  life.     Benbow  could 

n6 


THE  ENGLISH   ADMIRALS 

not  lie  still  in  his  bunk  after  he  had  lost  his  leg;  he  must 
be  on  deck  in  a  basket  to  direct  and  animate  the  fight 
I  said  they  loved  war  like  a  mistress;  yet  I  think  there 
are  not  many  mistresses  we  should  continue  to  woo 
under  similar  circumstances.  Trowbridge  went  ashore 
with  the  Culloden,  and  was  able  to  take  no  part  in  the 
battle  of  the  Nile.  "The  merits  of  that  ship  and  her 
gallant  captain,"  wrote  Nelson  to  the  Admiralty,  "are 
too  well  known  to  benefit  by  anything  I  could  say. 
Her  misfortune  was  great  in  getting  aground,  while  her 
more  fortunate  companions  were  in  the  full  tide  of  hap- 
piness." This  is  a  notable  expression,  and  depicts  the 
whole  great-hearted,  big-spoken  stock  of  the  English 
Admirals  to  a  hair.  It  was  to  be  "in  the  full  tide  of 
happiness  "  for  Nelson  to  destroy  five  thousand  five 
hundred  and  twenty-five  of  his  fellow-creatures,  and 
have  his  own  scalp  torn  open  by  a  piece  of  langridge 
shot.  Hear  him  again  at  Copenhagen:  "A  shot 
through  the  mainmast  knocked  the  splinters  about;  and 
he  observed  to  one  of  his  officers  with  a  smile,  'It  is 
warm  work,  and  this  may  be  the  last  to  any  of  us  at  any 
moment;'  and  then,  stopping  short  at  the  gangway, 
added,  with  emotion,  'But,  mark  you  —  I  would  not  he 
elsewhere  for  thousands. ' ' ' 

I  must  tell  one  more  story,  which  has  lately  been 
made  familiar  to  us  all,  and  that  in  one  of  the  noblest 
ballads  in  the  English  language.  I  had  written  my 
tame  prose  abstract,  I  shall  beg  the  reader  to  believe, 
when  I  had  no  notion  that  the  sacred  bard  designed  an 
immortality  for  Greenville.  Sir  Richard  Greenville  was 
Vice- Admiral  to  Lord  Thomas  Howard,  and  lay  off  the 
Azores  with  the  English  squadron  in  159 1.     He  was  a 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

noted  tyrant  to  his  crew :  a  dark,  bullying  fellow  appar- 
ently ;  and  it  is  related  of  him  that  he  would  chew  and 
swallow  wineglasses,  by  way  of  convivial  levity,  till  the 
blood  ran  out  of  his  mouth.  When  the  Spanish  fleet 
of  fifty  sail  came  within  sight  of  the  English,  his  ship, 
the  Revenge,  was  the  last  to  weigh  anchor,  and  was  so 
far  circumvented  by  the  Spaniards,  that  there  were  but 
two  courses  open — either  to  turn  her  back  upon  the 
enemy  or  sail  through  one  of  his  squadrons.  The  first 
alternative  Greenville  dismissed  as  dishonourable  to 
himself,  his  country,  and  her  Majesty's  ship.  Accord- 
ingly, he  chose  the  latter,  and  steered  into  the  Spanish 
armament.  Several  vessels  he  forced  to  luff  and  fall 
under  his  lee;  until,  about  three  o'clock  of  the  after- 
noon, a  great  ship  of  three  decks  of  ordnance  took  the 
wind  out  of  his  sails,  and  immediately  boarded.  Thence- 
forward, and  all  night  long,  the  Revenge  held  her  own 
single-handed  against  the  Spaniards.  As  one  ship  was 
beaten  off,  another  took  its  place.  She  endured,  accord- 
ing to  Raleigh's  computation,  "eight  hundred  shot  of 
great  artillery,  besides  many  assaults  and  entries."  By 
morning  the  powder  was  spent,  the  pikes  all  broken, 
not  a  stick  was  standing,  "nothing  left  overhead  either 
for  flight  or  defence;"  six  feet  of  water  in  the  hold; 
almost  all  the  men  hurt;  and  Greenville  himself  in  a 
dying  condition.  To  bring  them  to  this  pass,  a  fleet  of 
fifty  sail  had  been  mauling  them  for  fifteen  hours,  the 
Admiral  of  the  Hulks  and  the  Ascension  of  Seville  had 
both  gone  down  alongside,  and  two  other  vessels  had 
taken  refuge  on  shore  in  a  sinking  state.  In  Hawke's 
words,  they  had  "taken  a  great  deal  of  drubbing." 
The  captain  and  crew  thought  they  had  done  about 

118 


THE  ENGLISH   ADMIRALS 

enough;  but  Greenville  was  not  of  this  opinion;  he 
gave  orders  to  the  master  gunner,  whom  he  knew  to 
be  a  fellow  after  his  own  stamp,  to  scuttle  the  Revenge 
where  she  lay.  The  others,  who  were  not  mortally 
wounded  like  the  Admiral,  interfered  with  some  deci- 
sion, locked  the  master  gunner  in  his  cabin,  after  having 
deprived  him  of  his  sword,  for  he  manifested  an  inten- 
tion to  kill  himself  if  he  were  not  to  sink  the  ship;  and 
sent  to  the  Spaniards  to  demand  terms.  These  were 
granted.  The  second  or  third  day  after,  Greenville  died 
of  his  wounds  aboard  the  Spanish  flagship,  leaving  his 
contempt  upon  the  "traitors  and  dogs"  who  had  not 
chosen  to  do  as  he  did,  and  engage  fifty  vessels,  well 
found  and  fully  manned,  with  six  inferior  craft  ravaged 
by  sickness  and  short  of  stores.  He  at  least,  he  said, 
had  done  his  duty  as  he  was  bound  to  do,  and  looked 
for  everlasting  fame. 

Some  one  said  to  me  the  other  day  that  they  consid- 
ered this  story  to  be  of  a  pestilent  example.  I  am  not 
inclined  to  imagine  we  shall  ever  be  put  into  any  prac- 
tical difficulty  from  a  superfluity  of  Greenvilles.  And 
besides,  I  demur  to  the  opinion.  The  worth  of  such 
actions  is  not  a  thing  to  be  decided  in  a  quaver  of  sen- 
sibility or  a  flush  of  righteous  commonsense.  The  man 
who  wished  to  make  the  ballads  of  his  country,  coveted 
a  small  matter  compared  to  what  Richard  Greenville  ac- 
complished. I  wonder  how  many  people  have  been 
inspired  by  this  mad  story,  and  how  many  battles  have 
been  actually  won  for  England  in  the  spirit  thus  en- 
gendered. It  is  only  with  a  measure  of  habitual  fool- 
hardiness  that  you  can  be  sure,  in  the  common  run  of 
men,  of  courage  on  a  reasonable  occasion.    An  army  or 

I!9 


"VIRGINIBUS  PUERISQUE" 

a  fleet,  if  it  is  not  led  by  quixotic  fancies,  will  not  be 
led  far  by  terror  of  the  Provost  Marshal.  Even  German 
warfare,  in  addition  to  maps  and  telegraphs,  is  not  above 
employing  the  Wacht  am  Rhein.  Nor  is  it  only  in  the 
profession  of  arms  that  such  stories  may  do  good  to  a 
man.  In  this  desperate  and  gleeful  fighting,  whether  it 
is  Greenville  or  Benbow,  Hawke  or  Nelson,  who  flies 
his  colours  in  the  ship,  we  see  men  brought  to  the  test 
and  giving  proof  of  what  we  call  heroic  feeling.  Pros- 
perous humanitarians  tell  me,  in  my  club  smoking-room, 
that  they  are  a  prey  to  prodigious  heroic  feelings,  and 
that  it  costs  them  more  nobility  of  soul  to  do  nothing  in 
particular,  than  would  carry  on  all  the  wars,  by  sea  or  land, 
of  bellicose  humanity.  It  may  very  well  be  so,  and  yet 
not  touch  the  point  in  question.  For  what  I  desire  is  to 
see  some  of  this  nobility  brought  face  to  face  with  me 
in  an  inspiriting  achievement.  A  man  may  talk  smoothly 
over  a  cigar  in  my  club  smoking-room  from  now  to  the 
Day  of  Judgment,  without  adding  anything  to  man- 
kind's treasury  of  illustrious  and  encouraging  examples. 
It  is  not  over  the  virtues  of  a  curate-and-tea-party  novel, 
that  people  are  abashed  into  high  resolutions.  It  may 
be  because  their  hearts  are  crass,  but  to  stir  them  prop- 
erly they  must  have  men  entering  into  glory  with  some 
pomp  and  circumstance.  And  that  is  why  these  stories 
of  our  sea-captains,  printed,  so  to  speak,  in  capitals,  and 
full  of  bracing  moral  influence,  are  more  valuable  to  Eng- 
land than  any  material  benefit  in  all  the  books  of  polit- 
ical economy  between  Westminster  and  Birmingham. 
Greenville  chewing  wineglasses  at  table  makes  no  very 
pleasant  figure,  any  more  than  a  thousand  other  artists 
when  they  are  viewed  in  the  body,  or  met  in  private 


THE   ENGLISH   ADMIRALS 

life ;  but  his  work  of  art,  his  finished  tragedy,  is  an  elo- 
quent performance ;  and  I  contend  it  ought  not  only  to 
enliven  men  of  the  sword  as  they  go  into  battle,  but 
send  back  merchant  clerks  with  more  heart  and  spirit 
to  their  book-keeping  by  double  entry. 

There  is  another  question  which  seems  bound  up  in 
this;  and  that  is  Temple's  problem:  whether  it  was 
wise  of  Douglas  to  burn  with  the  Royal  Oak  ?  and  by 
implication,  what  it  was  that  made  him  do  so  ?  Many 
will  tell  you  it  was  the  desire  of  fame. 

"To  what  do  Caesar  and  Alexander  owe  the  infinite 
grandeur  of  their  renown,  but  to  fortune  ?  How  many 
men  has  she  extinguished  in  the  beginning  of  their  prog- 
ress, of  whom  we  have  no  knowledge ;  who  brought 
as  much  courage  to  the  work  as  they,  if  their  adverse 
hap  had  not  cut  them  off  in  the  first  sally  of  their  arms  ? 
Amongst  so  many  and  so  great  dangers,  I  do  not  re- 
member to  have  anywhere  read  that  Caesar  was  ever 
wounded ;  a  thousand  have  fallen  in  less  dangers  than 
the  least  of  these  he  went  through.  A  great  many  brave 
actions  must  be  expected  to  be  performed  without  wit- 
ness, for  one  that  comes  to  some  notice.  A  man  is  not 
always  at  the  top  of  a  breach,  or  at  the  head  of  an  army 
in  the  sight  of  his  general,  as  upon  a  platform.  He  is 
often  surprised  between  the  hedge  and  the  ditch;  he 
must  run  the  hazard  of  his  life  against  a  henroost;  he 
must  dislodge  four  rascally  musketeers  out  of  a  barn ;  he 
must  prick  out  single  from  his  party,  as  necessity  arises, 
and  meet  adventures  alone." 

Thus  far  Montaigne,  in  a  characteristic  essay  on  Glory. 
Where  death  is  certain,  as  in  the  cases  of  Douglas  or 
Greenville,  it  seems  all  one  from  a  personal  point  of 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

view.  The  man  who  lost  his  life  against  a  henroost,  is 
in  the  same  pickle  with  him  who  lost  his  life  against  a 
fortified  place  of  the  first  order.  Whether  he  has  missed 
a  peerage  or  only  the  corporal's  stripes,  it  is  all  one  if  he 
has  missed  them  and  is  quietly  in  the  grave.  It  was  by 
a  hazard  that  we  learned  the  conduct  of  the  four  marines 
of  the  Wager.  There  was  no  room  for  these  brave  fel- 
lows in  the  boat,  and  they  were  left  behind  upon  the 
island  to  a  certain  death.  They  were  soldiers,  they  said, 
and  knew  well  enough  it  was  their  business  to  die;  and 
as  their  comrades  pulled  away,  they  stood  upon  the 
beach,  gave  three  cheers,  and  cried  "God  bless  the 
king ! "  Now,  one  or  two  of  those  who  were  in  the  boat 
escaped,  against  all  likelihood,  to  tell  the  story.  That 
was  a  great  thing  for  us ;  but  surely  it  cannot,  by  any 
possible  twisting  of  human  speech,  be  construed  into 
anything  great  for  the  marines.  You  may  suppose,  if 
you  like,  that  they  died  hoping  their  behaviour  would 
not  be  forgotten ;  or  you  may  suppose  they  thought  no- 
thing on  the  subject,  which  is  much  more  likely.  What 
can  be  the  signification  of  the  word  "fame  "  to  a  pri- 
vate of  marines,  who  cannot  read  and  knows  nothing  of 
past  history  beyond  the  reminiscences  of  his  grand- 
mother ?  But  whichever  supposition  you  make,  the  fact 
is  unchanged.  They  died  while  the  question  still  hung 
in  the  balance;  and  I  suppose  their  bones  were  already 
white,  before  the  winds  and  the  waves  and  the  humour 
of  Indian  chiefs  and  Spanish  governors  had  decided 
whether  they  were  to  be  unknown  and  useless  martyrs 
or  honoured  heroes.  Indeed,  I  believe  this  is  the  lesson : 
if  it  is  for  fame  that  men  do  brave  actions,  they  are  only 
silly  felbws  after  all. 

122 


THE   ENGLISH   ADMIRALS 

It  is  at  best  but  a  pettifogging,  pickthank  business  to 
decompose  actions  into  little  personal  motives,  and  ex- 
plain heroism  away.  The  Abstract  Bagman  will  grow 
like  an  Admiral  at  heart,  net  by  ungrateful  carping,  but 
in  a  heat  of  admiration.  But  there  is  another  theory  of 
the  personal  motive  in  these  fine  sayings  and  doings, 
which  I  believe  to  be  true  and  wholesome.  People  usu- 
ally do  things,  and  suffer  martyrdoms,  because  they  have 
an  inclination  that  way.  The  best  artist  is  not  the  man 
who  fixes  his  eye  on  posterity,  but  the  one  who  loves 
the  practice  of  his  art.  And  instead  of  having  a  taste  for 
being  successful  merchants  and  retiring  at  thirty,  some 
people  have  a  taste  for  high  and  what  we  call  heroic 
forms  of  excitement.  If  the  Admirals  courted  war  like 
a  mistress ;  if,  as  the  drum  beat  to  quarters,  the  sailors 
came  gaily  out  of  the  forecastle, —  it  is  because  a  fight  is 
a  period  of  multiplied  and  intense  experiences,  and,  by 
Nelson's  computation,  worth  " thousands"  to  any  one 
who  has  a  heart  under  his  jacket.  If  the  marines  of  the 
Wager  gave  three  cheers  and  cried  ' '  God  bless  the  king, " 
it  was  because  they  liked  to  do  things  nobly  for  their  own 
satisfaction.  They  were  giving  their  lives,  there  was  no 
help  for  that;  and  they  made  it  a  point  of  self-respect  to 
give  them  handsomely.  And  there  were  never  four  hap- 
pier marines  in  God's  world  than  these  four  at  that  mo- 
ment. If  it  was  worth  thousands  to  be  at  the  Baltic,  I 
wish  a  Benthamite  arithmetician  would  calculate  how 
much  it  was  worth  to  be  one  of  these  four  marines ;  or 
how  much  their  story  is  worth  to  each  of  us  who  read 
it.  And  mark  you,  undemonstrative  men  would  have 
spoiled  the  situation.  The  finest  action  is  the  better  for 
a  piece  of  purple.     If  the  soldiers  of  the  Birkenhead  had 

123 


"VIRGINIBUS  PUERISQUE" 

not  gone  down  in  line,  or  these  marines  of  the  Wager 
had  walked  away  simply  into  the  island,  like  plenty  of 
other  brave  fellows  in  the  like  circumstances,  my  Ben- 
thamite arithmetician  would  assign  a  far  lower  value  to 
the  two  stories.  We  have  to  desire  a  grand  air  in  our 
heroes ;  and  such  a  knowledge  of  the  human  stage  as 
shall  make  them  put  the  dots  on  their  own  i's,  and  leave 
us  in  no  suspense  as  to  when  they  mean  to  be  heroic. 
And  hence,  we  should  congratulate  ourselves  upon  the 
fact  that  our  Admirals  were  not  only  great-hearted  but 
big-spoken. 

The  heroes  themselves  say,  as  often  as  not,  that  fame 
is  their  object;  but  I  do  not  think  that  is  much  to  the 
purpose.  People  generally  say  what  they  have  been 
taught  to  say ;  that  was  the  catchword  they  were  given 
in  youth  to  express  the  aims  of  their  way  of  life;  and 
men  who  are  gaining  great  battles  are  not  likely  to  take 
much  trouble  in  reviewing  their  sentiments  and  the 
words  in  which  they  were  told  to  express  them.  Al- 
most every  person,  if  you  will  believe  himself,  holds  a 
quite  different  theory  of  life  from  the  one  on  which  he 
is  patently  acting.  And  the  fact  is,  fame  may  be  a  fore- 
thought and  an  afterthought,  but  it  is  too  abstract  an 
idea  to  move  people  greatly  in  moments  of  swift  and 
momentous  decision.  It  is  from  something  more  im- 
mediate, some  determination  of  blood  to  the  head,  some 
trick  of  the  fancy,  that  the  breach  is  stormed  or  the  bold 
word  spoken.  I  am  sure  a  fellow  shooting  an  ugly  weir 
in  a  canoe  has  exactly  as  much  thought  about  fame  as 
most  commanders  going  into  battle;  and  yet  the  action, 
fall  out  how  it  will,  is  not  one  of  those  the  muse  delights 
to  celebrate.     Indeed  it  is  difficult  to  see  why  the  fellow 

124 


THE   ENGLISH   ADMIRALS 

does  a  thing  so  nameless  and  yet  so  formidable  to  look 
at,  unless  on  the  theory  that  he  likes  it.  I  suspect  that 
is  why ;  and  I  suspect  it  is  at  least  ten  per  cent  of  why 
Lord  Beaconsfield  and  Mr.  Gladstone  have  debated  so 
much  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  why  Burnaby  rode 
to  Khiva  the  other  day,  and  why  the  Admirals  courted 
war  like  a  mistress. 


SOME  PORTRAITS  BY  RAEBURN 

THROUGH  the  initiative  of  a  prominent  citizen, 
Edinburgh  has  been  in  possession,  for  some  au- 
tumn weeks,  of  a  gallery  of  paintings  of  singular  merit 
and  interest.  They  were  exposed  in  the  apartments  of 
the  Scotch  Academy;  and  filled  those  who  are  accus- 
tomed to  visit  the  annual  spring  exhibition,  with  as- 
tonishment and  a  sense  of  incongruity.  Instead  of  the 
too  common  purple  sunsets,  and  pea-green  fields,  and 
distances  executed  in  putty  and  hog's  lard,  he  beheld, 
looking  down  upon  him  from  the  walls  of  room  after 
room,  a  whole  army  of  wise,  grave,  humorous,  ca- 
pable, or  beautiful  countenances,  painted  simply  and 
strongly  by  a  man  of  genuine  instinct.  It  was  a  com- 
plete act  of  the  Human  Drawing-Room  Comedy.  Lords 
and  ladies,  soldiers  and  doctors,  hanging  judges,  and 
heretical  divines,  a  whole  generation  of  good  society 
was  resuscitated ;  and  the  Scotchman  of  to-day  walked 
about  among  the  Scotchmen  of  two  generations  ago. 
The  moment  was  well  chosen,  neither  too  late  nor  too 
early.  The  people  who  sat  for  these  pictures  are  not 
yet  ancestors,  they  are  still  relations.  They  are  not  yet 
altogether  a  part  of  the  dusty  past,  but  occupy  a  mid- 
dle distance  within  cry  of  our  affections.      The  little 

126 


SOME   PORTRAITS   BY   RAEBURN 

child  who  looks  wonderingly  on  his  grandfather's  watch 
in  the  picture,  is  now  the  veteran  Sheriff  emeritus  of 
Perth.  And  I  hear  a  story  of  a  lady  who  returned  the 
other  day  to  Edinburgh,  after  an  absence  of  sixty  years : 
"  I  could  see  none  of  my  old  friends,"  she  said,  "  until 
I  went  into  the  Raeburn  Gallery,  and  found  them  all 
there." 

It  would  be  difficult  to  say  whether  the  collection  was 
more  interesting  on  the  score  of  unity  or  diversity. 
Where  the  portraits  were  all  of  the  same  period,  almost 
all  of  the  same  race,  and  all  from  the  same  brush,  there 
could  not  fail  to  be  many  points  of  similarity.  And  yet 
the  similarity  of  the  handling  seems  to  throw  into  more 
vigorous  relief  those  personal  distinctions  which  Rae- 
burn was  so  quick  to  seize.  He  was  a  born  painter  of 
portraits.  He  looked  people  shrewdly  between  the 
eyes,  surprised  their  manners  in  their  face,  and  had  pos- 
sessed himself  of  what  was  essential  in  their  character 
before  they  had  been  many  minutes  in  his  studio. 
What  he  was  so  swift  to  perceive,  he  conveyed  to  the 
canvas  almost  in  the  moment  of  conception.  He  had 
never  any  difficulty,  he  said,  about  either  hands  or  faces. 
About  draperies  or  light  or  composition,  he  might  see 
room  for  hesitation  or  afterthought.  But  a  face  or  a 
hand  was  something  plain  and  legible.  There  were  no 
two  ways  about  it,  any  more  than  about  the  person's 
name.  And  so  each  of  his  portraits  is  not  only  (in 
Doctor  Johnson's  phrase,  aptly  quoted  on  the  catalogue) 
"a  piece  of  history,"  but  a  piece  of  biography  into  the 
bargain.  It  is  devoutly  to  be  wished  that  all  biography 
were  equally  amusing,  and  carried  its  own  credentials 
equally  upon  its  face.     These  portraits  are  racier  than 

127 


"VIRGINIBUS  PUERISQUE" 

many  anecdotes,  and  more  complete  than  many  a  vol- 
ume of  sententious  memoirs.  You  can  see  whether  you 
get  a  stronger  and  clearer  idea  of  Robertson  the  histo- 
rian from  Raeburn's  palette  or  Dugald  Stewart's  woolly 
and  evasive  periods.  And  then  the  portraits  are  both 
signed  and  countersigned.  For  you  have,  first,  the  au- 
thority of  the  artist,  whom  you  recognise  as  no  mean 
critic  of  the  looks  and  manners  of  men ;  and  next  you 
have  the  tacit  acquiescence  of  the  subject,  who  sits  look- 
ing out  upon  you  with  inimitable  innocence,  and  ap- 
parently under  the  impression  that  he  is  in  a  room  by 
himself.  For  Raeburn  could  plunge  at  once  through 
all  the  constraint  and  embarrassment  of  the  sitter,  and 
present  the  face,  clear,  open,  and  intelligent  as  at  the 
most  disengaged  moments.  This  is  best  seen  in  por- 
traits where  the  sitter  is  represented  in  some  appropri- 
ate action :  Neil  Gow  with  his  fiddle,  Doctor  Spens  shoot- 
ing an  arrow,  or  Lord  Bannatyne  hearing  a  cause. 
Above  all,  from  this  point  of  view,  the  portrait  of  Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Lyon  is  notable.  A  strange  enough 
young  man,  pink,  fat  about  the  lower  part  of  the  face, 
with  a  lean  forehead,  a  narrow  nose  and  a  fine  nostril, 
sits  with  a  drawing-board  upon  his  knees.  He  has  just 
paused  to  render  himself  account  of  some  difficulty,  to 
disentangle  some  complication  of  line  or  compare  neigh- 
bouring values.  And  there,  without  any  perceptible 
wrinkling,  you  have  rendered  for  you  exactly  the  fixed 
look  in  the  eyes,  and  the  unconscious  compression  of 
the  mouth,  that  befit  and  signify  an  effort  of  the  kind. 
The  whole  pose,  the  whole  expression,  is  absolutely  di- 
rect and  simple.  You  are  ready  to  take  your  oath  to  it 
that  Colonel  Lyon  had  no  idea  he  was  sitting  for  his 

128 


SOME   PORTRAITS   BY   RAEBURN 

picture,  and  thought  of  nothing  in  the  world  besides 
his  own  occupation  of  the  moment. 

Although  the  collection  did  not  embrace,  I  under- 
stand, nearly  the  whole  of  Raeburn's  works,  it  was  too 
large  not  to  contain  some  that  were  indifferent,  whether 
as  works  of  art  or  as  portraits.  Certainly  the  standard 
was  remarkably  high,  and  was  wonderfully  maintained, 
but  there  were  one  or  two  pictures  that  might  have  been 
almost  as  well  away  —  one  or  two  that  seemed  want- 
ing in  salt,  and  some  that  you  can  only  hope  were  not 
successful  likenesses.  Neither  of  the  portraits  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  for  instance,  were  very  agreeable  to  look 
upon.  You  do  not  care  to  think  that  Scott  looked  quite 
so  rustic  and  puffy.  And  where  is  that  peaked  fore- 
head which,  according  to  all  written  accounts  and  many 
portraits,  was  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  his 
face?  Again,  in  spite  of  his  own  satisfaction  and  in  spite 
of  Dr.  John  Brown,  I  cannot  consider  that  Raeburn  was 
very  happy  in  hands.  Without  doubt,  he  could  paint  one 
if  he  had  taken  the  trouble  to  study  it;  but  it  was  by  no 
means  always  that  he  gave  himself  the  trouble.  Look- 
ing round  one  of  these  rooms  hung  about  with  his  por- 
traits, you  were  struck  with  the  array  of  expressive 
faces,  as  compared  with  what  you  may  have  seen  in 
looking  round  a  room  full  of  living  people.  But  it  was 
not  so  with  the  hands.  The  portraits  differed  from  each 
other  in  face  perhaps  ten  times  as  much  as  they  differed 
by  the  hand;  whereas  with  living  people  the  two  go 
pretty  much  together ;  and  where  one  is  remarkable,  the 
other  will  almost  certainly  not  be  commonplace. 

One  interesting  portrait  was  that  of  Duncan  of  Cam- 
perdown.     He  stands  in  uniform  beside  a  table,  his  feet 

129 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUER1SQUE" 

slightly  straddled  with  the  balance  of  an  old  sailor,  his 
hand  poised  upon  a  chart  by  the  finger  tips.  The  mouth 
is  pursed,  the  nostril  spread  and  drawn  up,  the  eye- 
brows very  highly  arched.  The  cheeks  lie  along  the 
jaw  in  folds  of  iron,  and  have  the  redness  that  comes  from 
much  exposure  to  salt  sea  winds.  From  the  whole 
figure,  attitude  and  countenance,  there  breathes  some- 
thing precise  and  decisive,  something  alert,  wiry,  and 
strong.  You  can  understand,  from  the  look  of  him, 
that  sense,  not  so  much  of  humour,  as  of  what  is  grim- 
mest and  driest  in  pleasantry,  which  inspired  his  address 
before  the  fight  at  Camperdown.  He  had  just  overtaken 
the  Dutch  fleet  under  Admiral  de  Winter.  "Gentle- 
men," says  he,  "you  see  a  severe  winter  approaching; 
I  have  only  to  advise  you  to  keep  up  a  good  fire."  Some- 
what of  this  same  spirit  of  adamantine  drollery  must  have 
supported  him  in  the  days  of  the  mutiny  at  the  Nore,  when 
he  lay  off  the  Texel  with  his  own  flagship,  the  Venerable, 
and  only  one  other  vessel,  and  kept  up  active  signals, 
as  though  he  had  a  powerful  fleet  in  the  offing,  to  intim- 
idate the  Dutch. 

Another  portrait  which  irresistibly  attracted  the  eye, 
was  the  half-length  of  Robert  M 'Queen,  of  Braxfield, 
Lord  Justice-Clerk.  If  I  know  gusto  in  painting  when  I 
see  it,  this  canvas  was  painted  with  rare  enjoyment. 
The  tart,  rosy,  humorous  look  of  the  man,  his  nose  like 
a  cudgel,  his  face  resting  squarely  on  the  jowl,  has  been 
caught  and  perpetuated  with  something  that  looks  like 
brotherly  love.  A  peculiarly  subtle  expression  haunts 
the  lower  part,  sensual  and  incredulous,  like  that  of  a 
man  tasting  good  Bordeaux  with  half  a  fancy  it  has  been 
somewhat  too  long  uncorked.     From  under  the  pen- 

130 


SOME   PORTRAITS   BY    RAEBURN 

dulous  eyelids  of  old  age,  the  eyes  look  out  with  a  half- 
youthful,  half-frosty  twinkle.  Hands,  with  no  pretence 
to  distinction,  are  folded  on  the  judge's  stomach.  So 
sympathetically  is  the  character  conceived  by  the  por- 
trait painter,  that  it  is  hardly  possible  to  avoid  some 
movement  of  sympathy  on  the  part  of  the  spectator. 
And  sympathy  is  a  thing  to  be  encouraged,  apart  from 
humane  considerations,  because  it  supplies  us  with  the 
materials  for  wisdom.  It  is  probably  more  instructive 
to  entertain  a  sneaking  kindness  for  any  unpopular  per- 
son, and,  among  the  rest,  for  Lord  Braxfield,  than  to 
give  way  to  perfect  raptures  of  moral  indignation  against 
his  abstract  vices.  He  was  the  last  judge  on  the  Scotch 
bench  to  employ  the  pure  Scotch  idiom.  His  opinions, 
thus  given  in  Doric,  and  conceived  in  a  lively,  rugged, 
conversational  style,  were  full  of  point  and  authority. 
Out  of  the  bar,  or  off  the  bench,  he  was  a  convivial  man, 
a  lover  of  wine,  and  one  who  "shone  peculiarly"  at 
tavern  meetings.  He  has  left  behind  him  an  unrivalled 
reputation  for  rough  and  cruel  speech ;  and  to  this  day 
his  name  smacks  of  the  gallows.  It  was  he  who  pre- 
sided at  the  trials  of  Muir  and  Skirving  in  1793  and  1794; 
and  his  appearance  on  these  occasions  was  scarcely  cut 
to  the  pattern  of  to-day.  His  summing  up  on  Muir  began 
thus  —  the  reader  must  supply  for  himself  "the  growl- 
ing, blacksmith's  voice  "  and  the  broad  Scotch  accent : 
"Now  this  is  the  question  for  consideration  —  Is  the 
panel  guilty  of  sedition,  or  is  he  not?  Now,  before  this 
can  be  answered,  two  things  must  be  attended  to  that 
require  no  proof :  First,  that  the  British  constitution  is 
the  best  that  ever  was  since  the  creation  of  the  world, 
and  it  is  not  possible  to  make  it  better."  It's  a  pretty  fair 

131 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

start,  is  it  not,  for  a  political  trial  ?  A  little  later,  he  has 
occasion  to  refer  to  the  relations  of  Muir  with  "  those 
wretches,"  the  French.  "I  never  liked  the  French  all 
my  days,"  said  his  lordship,  "but  now  I  hate  them." 
And  yet  a  little  further  on :  "A  government  in  any  coun- 
try should  be  like  a  corporation ;  and  in  this  country  it  is 
made  up  of  the  landed  interest,  which  alone  has  a  right 
to  be  represented.  As  for  the  rabble  who  have  nothing 
but  personal  property,  what  hold  has  the  nation  of  them  ? 
They  may  pack  up  their  property  on  their  backs,  and 
leave  the  country  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye."  After 
having  made  profession  of  sentiments  so  cynically  anti- 
popular  as  these,  when  the  trials  were  at  an  end,  which 
was  generally  about  midnight,  Braxfield  would  walk 
home  to  his  house  in  George  Square  with  no  better  es- 
cort than  an  easy  conscience.  I  think  I  see  him  getting 
his  cloak  about  his  shoulders,  and,  with  perhaps  a  lan- 
tern in  one  hand,  steering  his  way  along  the  streets  in 
the  mirk  January  night.  It  might  have  been  that  very 
day  that  Skirving  had  defied  him  in  these  words  :  "It 
is  altogether  unavailing  for  your  lordship  to  menace  me; 
for  I  have  long  learned  to  fear  not  the  face  of  man ; "  and 
I  can  fancy,  as  Braxfield  reflected  on  the  number  of  what 
he  called  Grumbletonians  in  Edinburgh,  and  of  how 
many  of  them  must  bear  special  malice  against  so  up- 
right and  inflexible  a  judge,  nay,  and  might  at  that  very 
moment  be  lurking  in  the  mouth  of  a  dark  close  with 
hostile  intent  —  I  can  fancy  that  he  indulged  in  a  sour 
smile,  as  he  reflected  that  he  also  was  not  especially 
afraid  of  men's  faces  or  men's  fists,  and  had  hitherto 
found  no  occasion  to  embody  this  insensibility  in  heroic 
words.    For  if  he  was  an  inhumane  old  gentleman  (and 

132 


SOME  PORTRAITS   BY   RAEBURN 

I  am  afraid  it  is  a  fact  that  he  was  inhumane),  he  was 
also  perfectly  intrepid.  You  may  look  into  the  queer 
face  of  that  portrait  for  as  long  as  you  will,  but  you  will 
not  see  any  hole  or  corner  for  timidity  to  enter  in. 

Indeed,  there  would  be  no  end  to  this  paper  if  I  were 
even  to  name  half  of  the  portraits  that  were  remarkable 
for  their  execution,  or  interesting  by  association.  There 
was  one  picture  of  Mr.  Wardrop,  of  Torbane  Hill,  which 
you  might  palm  off  upon  most  laymen  as  a  Rembrandt; 
and  close  by,  you  saw  the  white  head  of  John  Clerk,  of 
Eldin,  that  country  gentleman  who,  playing  with  pieces 
of  cork  on  his  own  dining-table,  invented  modern  naval 
warfare.  There  was  that  portrait  of  Neil  Gow,  to  sit  for 
which  the  old  fiddler  walked  daily  through  the  streets 
of  Edinburgh  arm  in  arm  with  the  Duke  of  Athole. 
There  was  good  Harry  Erskine,  with  his  satirical  nose 
and  upper  lip,  and  his  mouth  just  open  for  a  witticism 
to  pop  out;  Hutton  the  geologist,  in  quakerish  raiment, 
and  looking  altogether  trim  and  narrow,  and  as  if  he 
cared  more  about  fossils  than  young  ladies ;  full-blown 
John  Robieson,  in  hyperbolical  red  dressing-gown,  and, 
every  inch  of  him,  a  fine  old  man  of  the  world;  Con- 
stable the  publisher,  upright  beside  a  table,  and  bearing  a 
corporation  with  commercial  dignity;  Lord  Bannatyne 
hearing  a  cause,  if  ever  anybody  heard  a  cause  since  the 
world  began ;  Lord  Newton  just  awakened  from  clan- 
destine slumber  on  the  bench ;  and  the  second  President 
Dundas,  with  every  feature  so  fat  that  he  reminds  you, 
in  his  wig,  of  some  droll  old  court  officer  in  an  illustrated 
nursery  story-book,  and  yet  all  these  fat  features  instinct 
with  meaning,  the  fat  lips  curved  and  compressed,  the 
nose  combining  somehow  the  dignity  of  a  beak  with  the 

133 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

good  nature  of  a  bottle,  and  the  very  double  chin  with 
an  air  of  intelligence  and  insight.  And  all  these  portraits 
are  so  pat  and  telling,  and  look  at  you  so  spiritedly  from 
the  walls,  that,  compared  with  the  sort  of  living  people 
one  sees  about  the  streets,  they  are  as  bright  new  sov- 
ereigns to  fishy  and  obliterated  sixpences.  Some  dis- 
paraging thoughts  upon  our  own  generation  could 
hardly  fail  to  present  themselves ;  but  it  is  perhaps  only 
the  sacer  vates  who  is  wanting;  and  we  also,  painted 
by  such  a  man  as  Carolus  Duran,  may  look  in  holiday 
immortality  upon  our  children  and  grandchildren. 

Raeburn's  young  women,  to  be  frank,  are  by  no  means 
of  the  same  order  of  merit.  No  one,  of  course,  could  be 
insensible  to  the  presence  of  Miss  Janet  Suttie  or  Mrs. 
Campbell  of  Possil.  When  things  are  as  pretty  as  that, 
criticism  is  out  of  season.  But,  on  the  whole,  it  is  only 
with  women  of  a  certain  age  that  he  can  be  said  to  have 
succeeded,  in  at  all  the  same  sense  as  we  say  he  suc- 
ceeded with  men.  The  younger  women  do  not  seem  to 
be  made  of  good  flesh  and  blood.  They  are  not  painted 
in  rich  and  unctuous  touches.  They  are  dry  and  di- 
aphanous. And  although  young  ladies  in  Great  Britain 
are  all  that  can  be  desired  of  them,  I  would  fain  hope 
they  are  not  quite  so  much  of  that  as  Raeburn  would 
have  us  believe.  In  all  these  pretty  faces,  you  miss 
character,  you  miss  fire,  you  miss  that  spice  of  the  devil 
which  is  worth  all  the  prettiness  in  the  world ;  and  what 
is  worst  of  all,  you  miss  sex.  His  young  ladies  are  not 
womanly  to  nearly  the  same  degree  as  his  men  are  mas- 
culine; they  are  so  in  a  negative  sense;  in  short,  they 
are  the  typical  young  ladies  of  the  male  novelist. 

To  say  truth,  either  Raeburn  was  timid  with  young 
134 


SOME   PORTRAITS   BY   RAEBURN 

and  pretty  sitters ;  or  he  had  stupefied  himself  with  sen- 
timentalities ;  or  else  (and  here  is  about  the  truth  of  it) 
Raeburn  and  the  rest  of  us  labour  under  an  obstinate 
blindness  in  one  direction,  and  know  very  little  more 
about  women  after  all  these  centuries  than  Adam  when 
he  first  saw  Eve.  This  is  all  the  more  likely,  because 
we  are  by  no  means  so  unintelligent  in  the  matter  of  old 
women.  There  are  some  capital  old  women,  it  seems 
to  me,  in  books  written  by  men.  And  Raeburn  has 
some,  such  as  Mrs.  Colin  Campbell,  of  Park,  or  the 
anonymous  "Old  lady  with  a  large  cap,"  which  are 
done  in  the  same  frank,  perspicacious  spirit  as  the  very 
best  of  his  men.  He  could  look  into  their  eyes  with- 
out trouble;  and  he  was  not  withheld,  by  any  bashful 
sentimentalism,  from  recognising  what  he  saw  there 
and  unsparingly  putting  it  down  upon  the  canvas.  But 
where  people  cannot  meet  without  some  confusion  and 
a  good  deal  of  involuntary  humbug,  and  are  occupied, 
for  as  long  as  they  are  together,  with  a  very  different 
vein  of  thought,  there  cannot  be  much  room  for  intelli- 
gent study  nor  much  result  in  the  shape  of  genuine  com- 
prehension. Even  women,  who  understand  men  so 
well  for  practical  purposes,  do  not  know  them  well 
enough  for  the  purposes  of  art.  Take  even  the  very 
best  of  their  male  creations,  take  Tito  Melema,  for  in- 
stance, and  you  will  find  he  has  an  equivocal  air,  and 
every  now  and  again  remembers  he  has  a  comb  at  the 
back  of  his  head.  Of  course,  no  woman  will  believe 
this,  and  many  men  will  be  so  very  polite  as  to  humour 
their  incredulity. 


'35 


child's  play 

THE  regret  we  have  for  our  childhood  is  not  wholly 
justifiable :  so  much  a  man  may  lay  down  without 
fear  of  public  ribaldry ;  for  although  we  shake  our  heads 
over  the  change,  we  are  not  unconscious  of  the  mani- 
fold advantages  of  our  new  state.  What  we  lose  in 
generous  impulse,  we  more  than  gain  in  the  habit  of 
generously  watching  others ;  and  the  capacity  to  enjoy 
Shakespeare  may  balance  a  lost  aptitude  for  playing  at 
soldiers.  Terror  is  gone  out  of  our  lives,  moreover; 
we  no  longer  see  the  devil  in  the  bed-curtains  nor  lie 
awake  to  listen  to  the  wind.  We  go  to  school  no 
more ;  and  if  we  have  only  exchanged  one  drudgery  for 
another  (which  is  by  no  means  sure),  we  are  set  free 
for  ever  from  the  daily  fear  of  chastisement.  And  yet  a 
great  change  has  overtaken  us;  and  although  we  do 
not  enjoy  ourselves  less,  at  least  we  take  our  pleasure 
differently.  We  need  pickles  nowadays  to  make 
Wednesday's  cold  mutton  please  our  Friday's  appetite ; 
and  I  can  remember  the  time  when  to  call  it  red  veni- 
son, and  tell  myself  a  hunter's  story,  would  have  made 
it  more  palatable  than  the  best  of  sauces.  To  the  grown 
person,  cold  mutton  is  cold  mutton  all  the  world  over; 
not  all  the  mythology  ever  invented  by  man  will  make 

«36 


CHILD'S   PLAY 

it  better  or  worse  to  him ;  the  broad  fact,  the  clamant 
reality,  of  the  mutton  carries  away  before  it  such  seduc- 
tive figments.  But  for  the  child  it  is  still  possible  to 
weave  an  enchantment  over  eatables ;  and  if  he  has  but 
read  of  a  dish  in  a  story-book,  it  will  be  heavenly  manna 
to  him  for  a  week. 

If  a  grown  man  does  not  like  eating  and  drinking  and 
exercise,  if  he  is  not  something  positive  in  his  tastes,  it 
means  he  has  a  feeble  body  and  should  have  some  medi- 
cine ;  but  children  may  be  pure  spirits,  if  they  will,  and 
take  their  enjoyment  in  a  world  of  moonshine.  Sensa- 
tion does  not  count  for  so  much  in  our  first  years  as  af- 
terwards; something  of  the  swaddling  numbness  of  in- 
fancy clings  about  us ;  we  see  and  touch  and  hear  through 
a  sort  of  golden  mist.  Children,  for  instance,  are  able 
enough  to  see,  but  they  have  no  great  faculty  for  look- 
ing; they  do  not  use  their  eyes  for  the  pleasure  of  using 
them,  but  for  by-ends  of  their  own ;  and  the  things  I  call 
to  mind  seeing  most  vividly,  were  not  beautiful  in  them- 
selves, but  merely  interesting  or  enviable  to  me  as  I 
thought  they  might  be  turned  to  practical  account  in  play. 
Nor  is  the  sense  of  touch  so  clean  and  poignant  in  children 
as  it  is  in  a  man.  If  you  will  turn  over  your  old  memo- 
ries, I  think  the  sensations  of  this  sort  you  remember 
will  be  somewhat  vague,  and  come  to  not  much  more 
than  a  blunt,  general  sense  of  heat  on  summer  days,  or 
a  blunt,  general  sense  of  wellbeing  in  bed.  And  here, 
of  course,  you  will  understand  pleasurable  sensations; 
for  overmastering  pain  —  the  most  deadly  and  tragical 
element  in  life,  and  the  true  commander  of  man's  soul 
and  body  —  alas!  pain  has  its  own  way  with  all  of  us; 
it  breaks  in,  a  rude  visitant,  upon  the  fairy  garden  where 

»37 


"VIRGIN1BUS   PUERISQUE" 

the  child  wanders  in  a  dream,  no  less  surely  than  it  rules 
upon  the  field  of  battle,  or  sends  the  immortal  war-god 
whimpering  to  his  father;  and  innocence,  no  more  than 
philosophy,  can  protect  us  from  this  sting.  As  for  taste, 
when  we  bear  in  mind  the  excesses  of  unmitigated  sugar 
which  delight  a  youthful  palate,  "it  is  surely  no  verv 
cynical  asperity  "  to  think  taste  a  character  of  the  ma- 
turer  growth.  Smell  and  hearing  are  perhaps  more  de- 
veloped ;  I  remember  many  scents,  many  voices,  and  a 
great  deal  of  spring  singing  in  the  woods.  But  hearing 
is  capable  of  vast  improvement  as  a  means  of  pleasure ; 
and  there  is  all  the  world  between  gaping  wonderment 
at  the  jargon  of  birds,  and  the  emotion  with  which  a 
man  listens  to  articulate  music. 

At  the  same  time,  and  step  by  step  with  this  increase 
in  the  definition  and  intensity  of  what  we  feel  which  ac- 
companies our  growing  age,  another  change  takes  place 
in  the  sphere  of  intellect,  by  which  all  things  are  trans- 
formed and  seen  through  theories  and  associations  as 
through  coloured  windows.  We  make  to  ourselves 
day  by  day,  out  of  history,  and  gossip,  and  econom- 
ical speculations,  and  God  knows  what,  a  medium  in 
which  we  walk  and  through  which  we  look  abroad. 
We  study  shop  windows  with  other  eyes  than  in  our 
childhood,  never  to  wonder,  not  always  to  admire, 
but  to  make  and  modify  our  little  incongruous  theo- 
ries about  life.  It  is  no  longer  the  uniform  of  a  sol- 
dier that  arrests  our  attention;  but  perhaps  the  flowing 
carriage  of  a  woman,  or  perhaps  a  countenance  that  has 
been  vividly  stamped  with  passion  and  carries  an  ad- 
venturous story  written  in  its  lines.  The  pleasure  of 
surprise  is  passed  away ;  sugar-loaves  and  water-carts 

138 


CHILD'S   PLAY 

seem  mighty  tame  to  encounter;  and  we  walk  the  streets 
to  make  romances  and  to  sociologise.  Nor  must  we  deny 
that  a  good  many  of  us  walk  them  solely  for  the  purposes 
of  transit  or  in  the  interest  of  a  livelier  digestion.  These, 
indeed,  may  look  back  with  mingled  thoughts  upon  their 
childhood,  but  the  rest  are  in  a  better  case;  they  know 
more  than  when  they  were  children,  they  understand 
better,  their  desires  and  sympathies  answer  more  nimbly 
to  the  provocation  of  the  senses,  and  their  minds  are 
brimming  with  interest  as  they  go  about  the  world. 

According  to  my  contention,  this  is  a  flight  to  which 
children  cannot  rise.  They  are  wheeled  in  perambu- 
lators or  dragged  about  by  nurses  in  a  pleasing  stupor. 
A  vague,  faint,  abiding  wonderment  possesses  them. 
Here  and  there  some  specially  remarkable  circumstance, 
such  as  a  water-cart  or  a  guardsman,  fairly  penetrates 
into  the  seat  of  thought  and  calls  them,  for  half  a  mo- 
ment, out  of  themselves ;  and  you  may  see  them,  still 
towed  forward  sideways  by  the  inexorable  nurse  as  by 
a  sort  of  destiny,  but  still  staring  at  the  bright  object  in 
their  wake.  It  may  be  some  minutes  before  another 
such  moving  spectacle  reawakens  them  to  the  world  in 
which  they  dwell.  For  other  children,  they  almost  in- 
variably show  some  intelligent  sympathy.  "  There  is  a 
fine  fellow  making  mud  pies,"  they  seem  to  say;  "that 
I  can  understand,  there  is  some  sense  in  mud  pies."  But 
the  doings  of  their  elders,  unless  where  they  are  speakingly 
picturesque  or  recommend  themselves  by  the  quality  of 
being  easily  imitable,  they  let  them  go  over  their  heads 
(as  we  say)  without  the  least  regard.  If  it  were  not  for 
this  perpetual  imitation,  we  should  be  tempted  to  fancy 
they  despised  us  outright,  or  only  considered  us  in  the 

139 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQLJE" 

light  of  creatures  brutally  strong  and  brutally  silly; 
among  whom  they  condescended  to  dwell  in  obedience 
like  a  philosopher  at  a  barbarous  court.  At  times,  in- 
deed, they  display  an  arrogance  of  disregard  that  is  truly 
staggering.  Once,  when  I  was  groaning  aloud  with 
physical  pain,  a  young  gentleman  came  into  the  room 
and  nonchalantly  inquired  if  I  had  seen  his  bow  and  ar- 
row. He  made  no  account  of  my  groans,  which  he  ac- 
cepted, as  he  had  to  accept  so  much  else,  as  a  piece  of 
the  inexplicable  conduct  of  his  elders;  and  like  a  wise 
young  gentleman,  he  would  waste  no  wonder  on  the 
subject.  Those  elders,  who  care  so  little  for  rational 
enjoyment,  and  are  even  the  enemies  of  rational  enjoy- 
ment for  others,  he  had  accepted  without  understanding 
and  without  complaint,  as  the  rest  of  us  accept  the 
scheme  of  the  universe. 

We  grown  people  can  tell  ourselves  a  story,  give  and 
take  strokes  until  the  bucklers  ring,  ride  far  and  fast, 
marry,  fall,  and  die;  all  the  while  sitting  quietly  by  the 
fire  or  lying  prone  in  bed.  This  is  exactly  what  a  child 
cannot  do,  or  does  not  do,  at  least,  when  he  can  find 
anything  else.  He  works  all  with  lay  figures  and  stage 
properties.  When  his  story  comes  to  the  fighting,  he 
must  rise,  get  something  by  way  of  a  sword  and  have 
a  set-to  with  a  piece  of  furniture,  until  he  is  out  of 
breath.  When  he  comes  to  ride  with  the  king's  par- 
don, he  must  bestride  a  chair,  which  he  will  so  hurry 
and  belabour  and  on  which  he  will  so  furiously  demean 
himself,  that  the  messenger  will  arrive,  if  not  bloody 
with  spurring,  at  least  fiery  red  with  haste.  If  his  ro- 
mance involves  an  accident  upon  a  cliff,  he  must  clam- 
ber in  person  about  the  chest  of  drawers  and  fall  bodily 

140 


CHILD'S   PLAY 

upon  the  carpet,  before  his  imagination  is  satisfied. 
Lead  soldiers,  dolls,  all  toys,  in  short,  are  in  the  same 
category  and  answer  the  same  end.  Nothing  can  stag- 
ger a  child's  faith ;  he  accepts  the  clumsiest  substitutes 
and  can  swallow  the  most  staring  incongruities.  The 
chair  he  has  just  been  besieging  as  a  castle,  or  valiantly 
cutting  to  the  ground  as  a  dragon,  is  taken  away  for  the 
accommodation  of  a  morning  visitor,  and  he  is  nothing 
abashed ;  he  can  skirmish  by  the  hour  with  a  stationary 
coal-scuttle;  in  the  midst  of  the  enchanted  pleasance, 
he  can  see,  without  sensible  shock,  the  gardener  soberly 
digging  potatoes  for  the  day's  dinner.  He  can  make 
abstraction  of  whatever  does  not  fit  into  his  fable ;  and 
he  puts  his  eyes  into  his  pocket,  just  as  we  hold  our 
noses  in  an  unsavoury  lane.  And  so  it  is,  that  although 
the  ways  of  children  cross  with  those  of  their  elders  in 
a  hundred  places  daily,  they  never  go  in  the  same  direc- 
tion nor  so  much  as  lie  in  the  same  element.  So  may 
the  telegraph  wires  intersect  the  line  of  the  high-road, 
or  so  might  a  landscape  painter  and  a  bagman  visit  the 
same  country,  and  yet  move  in  different  worlds. 

People  struck  with  these  spectacles,  cry  aloud  about 
the  power  of  imagination  in  the  young.  Indeed  there 
may  be  two  words  to  that.  It  is,  in  some  ways,  but  a 
pedestrian  fancy  that  the  child  exhibits.  It  is  the  grown 
people  who  make  the  nursery  stories ;  all  the  children 
do,  is  jealously  to  preserve  the  text.  One  out  of  a  dozen 
reasons  why  Robinson  Crusoe  should  be  so  popular  with 
youth,  is  that  it  hits  their  level  in  this  matter  to  a  nicety ; 
Crusoe  was  always  at  makeshifts  and  had,  in  so  many 
words,  to  play  at  a  great  variety  of  professions ;  and  then 
the  book  is  all  about  tools,  and  there  is  nothing  that  de- 

141 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

lights  a  child  so  much.  Hammers  and  saws  belong  to 
a  province  of  life  that  positively  calls  for  imitation.  The 
juvenile  lyrical  drama,  surely  of  the  most  ancient  Thes- 
pian model,  wherein  the  trades  of  mankind  are  succes- 
sively simulated  to  the  running  burthen  <(Ona  cold  and 
frosty  morning,"  gives  a  good  instance  of  the  artistic 
taste  in  children.  And  this  need  for  overt  action  and 
lay  figures  testifies  to  a  defect  in  the  child's  imagination 
which  prevents  him  from  carrying  out  his  novels  in 
the  privacy  of  his  own  heart.  He  does  not  yet  know 
enough  of  the  world  and  men.  His  experience  is  incom- 
plete. That  stage-wardrobe  and  scene-room  that  we 
call  the  memory  is  so  ill  provided,  that  he  can  overtake 
few  combinations  and  body  out  few  stories,  to  his  own 
content,  without  some  external  aid.  He  is  at  the  experi- 
mental stage;  he  is  not  sure  how  one  would  feel  in  cer- 
tain circumstances ;  to  make  sure,  he  must  come  as  near 
trying  it  as  his  means  permit.  And  so  here  is  young 
heroism  with  a  wooden  sword,  and  mothers  practise 
their  kind  vocation  over  a  bit  of  jointed  stick.  It  may  be 
laughable  enough  just  now ;  but  it  is  these  same  people 
and  these  same  thoughts,  that  not  long  hence,  when  they 
are  on  the  theatre  of  life,  will  make  you  weep  and  trem- 
ble. For  children  think  very  much  the  same  thoughts 
and  dream  the  same  dreams,  as  bearded  men  and  mar- 
riageable women.  No  one  is  more  romantic.  Fame 
and  honour,  the  love  of  young  men  and  the  love  of 
mothers,  the  business  man's  pleasure  in  method,  all 
these  and  others  they  anticipate  and  rehearse  in  their 
play  hours.  Upon  us,  who  are  further  advanced  and 
fairly  dealing  with  the  threads  of  destiny,  they  only 
glance  from  time  to  time  to  glean  a  hint  for  their  own 

142 


CHILD'S   PLAY 

mimetic  reproduction.  Two  children  playing  at  soldiers 
are  far  more  interesting  to  each  other  than  one  of  the 
scarlet  beings  whom  both  are  busy  imitating.  This 
is  perhaps  the  greatest  oddity  of  all.  "  Art  for  art"  is 
their  motto ;  and  the  doings  of  grown  folk  are  only  in- 
teresting as  the  raw  material  for  play.  Not  Theophile 
Gautier,  not  Flaubert,  can  look  more  callously  upon  life, 
or  rate  the  reproduction  more  highly  over  the  reality; 
and  they  will  parody  an  execution,  a  deathbed,  or  the 
funeral  of  the  young  man  of  Nain,  with  all  the  cheerful- 
ness in  the  world. 

The  true  parallel  for  play  is  not  to  be  found,  of  course, 
in  conscious  art,  which,  though  it  be  derived  from  play, 
is  itself  an  abstract,  impersonal  thing,  and  depends 
largely  upon  philosophical  interests  beyond  the  scope 
of  childhood.  It  is  when  we  make  castles  in  the  air 
and  personate  the  leading  character  in  our  own  roman- 
ces, that  we  return  to  the  spirit  of  our  first  years.  Only, 
there  are  several  reasons  why  the  spirit  is  no  longer  so 
agreeable  to  indulge.  Nowadays,  when  we  admit  this 
personal  element  into  our  divagations  we  are  apt  to  stir 
up  uncomfortable  and  sorrowful  memories,  and  remind 
ourselves  sharply  of  old  wounds.  Our  day-dreams  can 
no  longer  lie  all  in  the  air  like  a  story  in  the  Arabian 
Nights;  they  read  to  us  rather  like  the  history  of  a  period 
in  which  we  ourselves  had  taken  part,  where  we  come 
across  many  unfortunate  passages  and  find  our  own 
conduct  smartly  reprimanded.  And  then  the  child, 
mind  you,  acts  his  parts.  He  does  not  merely  repeat 
them  to  himself;  he  leaps,  he  runs,  and  sets  the  blood 
agog  over  all  his  body.  And  so  his  play  breathes  him ; 
and  he  no  sooner  assumes  a  passion  than  he  gives  it 

»43 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUER1SQUE" 

vent.  Alas !  when  we  betake  ourselves  to  our  intellect- 
ual form  of  play,  sitting  quietly  by  the  fire  or  lying  prone 
in  bed,  we  rouse  many  hot  feelings  for  which  we  can 
find  no  outlet.  Substitutes  are  not  acceptable  to  the 
mature  mind,  which  desires  the  thing  itself;  and  even 
to  rehearse  a  triumphant  dialogue  with  one's  enemy, 
although  it  is  perhaps  the  most  satisfactory  piece  of  play 
still  left  within  our  reach,  is  not  entirely  satisfying,  and 
is  even  apt  to  lead  to  a  visit  and  an  interview  which 
may  be  the  reverse  of  triumphant  after  all. 

In  the  child's  world  of  dim  sensation,  play  is  all  in 
all.  "Making  believe"  is  the  gist  of  his  whole  life, 
and  he  cannot  so  much  as  take  a  walk  except  in  char- 
acter. I  could  not  learn  my  alphabet  without  some 
suitable  mise-en-scene,  and  had  to  act  a  business  man 
in  an  office  before  I  could  sit  down  to  my  book.  Will 
you  kindly  question  your  memory,  and  find  out  how 
much  you  did,  work  or  pleasure,  in  good  faith  and 
soberness,  and  for  how  much  you  had  to  cheat  yourself 
with  some  invention  ?  I  remember,  as  though  it  were 
yesterday,  the  expansion  of  spirit,  the  dignity  and  self- 
reliance,  that  came  with  a  pair  of  mustachios  in  burnt 
cork,  even  when  there  was  none  to  see.  Children  are 
even  content  to  forego  what  we  call  the  realities,  and 
prefer  the  shadow  to  the  substance.  When  they  might 
be  speaking  intelligibly  together,  they  chatter  senseless 
gibberish  by  the  hour,  and  are  quite  happy  because 
they  are  making  believe  to  speak  French.  I  have  said 
already  how  even  the  imperious  appetite  of  hunger  suf- 
fers itself  to  be  gulled  and  led  by  the  nose  with  the  fag 
end  of  an  old  song.  And  it  goes  deeper  than  this: 
when  children  are  together  even  a  meal  is  felt  as  an  in- 

144 


CHILD'S   PLAY 

terruption  in  the  business  of  life;  and  they  must  find 
some  imaginative  sanction,  and  tell  themselves  some 
sort  of  story,  to  account  for,  to  colour,  to  render  enter- 
taining, the  simple  processes  of  eating  and  drinking. 
What  wonderful  fancies  I  have  heard  evolved  out  of  the 
pattern  upon  tea -cups!  —  from  which  there  followed  a 
code  of  rules  and  a  whole  world  of  excitement,  until 
tea -drinking  began  to  take  rank  as  a  game.  When  my 
cousin  and  I  took  our  porridge  of  a  morning,  we  had  a 
device  to  enliven  the  course  of  the  meal.  He  ate  his 
with  sugar,  and  explained  it  to  be  a  country  continually 
buried  under  snow.  I  took  mine  with  milk,  and  ex- 
plained it  to  be  a  country  suffering  gradual  inundation. 
You  can  imagine  us  exchanging  bulletins;  how  here 
was  an  island  still  unsubmerged,  here  a  valley  not  yet 
covered  with  snow;  what  inventions  were  made;  how 
his  population  lived  in  cabins  on  perches  and  travelled 
on  stilts,  and  how  mine  was  always  in  boats ;  how  the 
interest  grew  furious,  as  the  last  corner  of  safe  ground 
was  cut  off  on  all  sides  and  grew  smaller  every  mo- 
ment; and  how,  in  fine,  the  food  was  of  altogether 
secondary  importance,  and  might  even  have  been  nau- 
seous, so  long  as  we  seasoned  it  with  these  dreams. 
But  perhaps  the  most  exciting  moments  I  ever  had  over, 
a  meal,  were  in  the  case  of  calves'  feet  jelly.  It  was 
hardly  possible  not  to  believe — and  you  may  be  sure, 
so  far  from  trying,  I  did  all  I  could  to  favour  the  illusion 
— that  some  part  of  it  was  hollow,  and  that  sooner  or 
later  my  spoon  would  lay  open  the  secret  tabernacle  of 
the  golden  rock.  There,  might  some  miniature  Red 
Beard  await  his  hour;  there,  might  one  find  the  treas- 
ures of  the  Forty  Thieves,  and  bewildered  Cassim  beating 

'45 


"VIRGIN1BUS   PUERISQUE" 

about  the  walls.  And  so  I  quarried  on  slowly,  with 
bated  breath,  savouring  the  interest.  Believe  me,  I  had 
little  palate  left  for  the  jelly;  and  though  I  preferred  the 
taste  when  I  took  cream  with  it,  I  used  often  to  go 
without,  because  the  cream  dimmed  the  transparent 
fractures. 

Even  with  games,  this  spirit  is  authoritative  with 
right-minded  children.  It  is  thus  that  hide-and-seek 
has  so  pre-eminent  a  sovereignty,  for  it  is  the  well- 
spring  of  romance,  and  the  actions  and  the  excitement 
to  which  it  gives  rise  lend  themselves  to  almost  any  sort 
of  fable.  And  thus  cricket,  which  is  a  mere  matter  of 
dexterity,  palpably  about  nothing  and  for  no  end,  often 
fails  to  satisfy  infantile  craving.  It  is  a  game,  if  you  like, 
but  not  a  game  of  play.  You  cannot  tell  yourself  a  story 
about  cricket;  and  the  activity  it  calls  forth  can  be  justi- 
fied on  no  rational  theory.  Even  football,  although  it 
admirably  simulates  the  tug  and  the  ebb  and  flow  of 
battle,  has  presented  difficulties  to  the  mind  of  young 
sticklers  after  verisimilitude;  and  I  knew  at  least  one 
little  boy  who  was  mightily  exercised  about  the  presence 
of  the  ball,  and  had  to  spirit  himself  up,  whenever  he 
came  to  play,  with  an  elaborate  story  of  enchantment, 
and  take  the  missile  as  a  sort  of  talisman  bandied  about 
in  conflict  between  two  Arabian  nations. 

To  think  of  such  a  frame  of  mind,  is  to  become  dis- 
quieted about  the  bringing  up  of  children.  Surely  they 
dwell  in  a  mythological  epoch,  and  are  not  the  contem- 
poraries of  their  parents.  What  can  they  think  of  them  ? 
what  can  they  make  of  these  bearded  or  petticoated 
giants  who  look  down  upon  their  games  ?  who  move 
upon  a  cloudy  Olympus,  following  unknown  designs 

146 


CHILD'S   PLAY 

apart  from  rational  enjoyment  ?  who  profess  the  tender- 
est  solicitude  for  children,  and  yet  every  now  and  again 
reach  down  out  of  their  altitude  and  terribly  vindicate 
the  prerogatives  of  age  ?  Off  goes  the  child,  corporally 
smarting,  but  morally  rebellious.  Were  there  ever  such 
unthinkable  deities  as  parents  ?  I  would  give  a  great 
deal  to  know  what,  in  nine  cases  out  often,  is  the  child's 
unvarnished  feeling.  A  sense  of  past  cajolery ;  a  sense 
of  personal  attraction,  at  best  very  feeble ;  above  all,  1 
should  imagine,  a  sense  of  terror  for  the  untried  residue 
of  mankind :  go  to  make  up  the  attraction  that  he  feels. 
No  wonder,  poor  little  heart,  with  such  a  weltering 
world  in  front  of  him,  if  he  clings  to  the  hand  he  knows! 
The  dread  irrationality  of  the  whole  affair,  as  it  seems  to 
children,  is  a  thing  we  are  all  too  ready  to  forget.  "  O, 
why,"  I  remember  passionately  wondering,  "why  can 
we  not  all  be  happy  and  devote  ourselves  to  play?" 
And  when  children  do  philosophise,  I  believe  it  is  usu- 
ally to  very  much  the  same  purpose. 

One  thing,  at  least,  comes  very  clearly  out  of  these 
considerations ;  that  whatever  we  are  to  expect  at  the 
hands  of  children,  it  should  not  be  any  peddling  exacti- 
tude about  matters  of  fact.  They  walk  in  a  vain  show, 
and  among  mists  and  rainbows;  they  are  passionate 
after  dreams  and  unconcerned  about  realities;  speech  is 
a  difficult  art  not  wholly  learned;  and  there  is  nothing 
in  their  own  tastes  or  purposes  to  teach  them  what  we 
mean  by  abstract  truthfulness.  When  a  bad  writer  is 
inexact,  even  if  he  can  look  back  on  half  a  century  of 
years,  we  charge  him  with  incompetence  and  not  with 
dishonesty.  And  why  not  extend  the  same  allowance 
to  imperfect  speakers  ?  Let  a  stockbroker  be  dead  stupid 

•47 


"VIRG1NIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

about  poetry,  or  a  poet  inexact  in  the  details  of  business, 
and  we  excuse  them  heartily  from  blame.  But  show  us 
a  miserable,  unbreeched,  human  entity,  whose  whole 
profession  it  is  to  take  a  tub  for  a  fortified  town  and  a 
shaving-brush  for  the  deadly  stiletto,  and  who  passes 
three-fourths  of  his  time  in  a  dream  and  the  rest  in  open 
self-deception,  and  we  expect  him  to  be  as  nice  upon  a 
matter  of  fact  as  a  scientific  expert  bearing  evidence. 
Upon  my  heart,  I  think  it  less  than  decent.  You  do  not 
consider  how  little  the  child  sees,  or  how  swift  he  is  to 
weave  what  he  has  seen  into  bewildering  fiction ;  and 
that  he  cares  no  more  for  what  you  call  truth,  than  you 
for  a  gingerbread  dragoon. 

I  am  reminded,  as  I  write,  that  the  child  is  very  in- 
quiring as  to  the  precise  truth  of  stories.  But  indeed 
this  is  a  very  different  matter,  and  one  bound  up  with 
the  subject  of  play,  and  the  precise  amount  of  play- 
fulness, or  payability,  to  be  looked  for  in  the  world. 
Many  such  burning  questions  must  arise  in  the  course 
of  nursery  education.  Among  the  fauna  of  this  planet, 
which  already  embraces  the  pretty  soldier  and  the  ter- 
rifying Irish  beggarman,  is,  or  is  not,  the  child  to  expect 
a  Bluebeard  or  a  Cormoran  ?  Is  he,  or  is  he  not,  to  look 
out  for  magicians,  kindly  and  potent  ?  May  he,  or  may 
he  not,  reasonably  hope  to  be  cast  away  upon  a  desert 
island,  or  turned  to  such  diminutive  proportions  that  he 
can  live  on  equal  terms  with  his  lead  soldiery,  and  go  a 
cruise  in  his  own  toy  schooner  ?  Surely  all  these  are 
practical  questions  to  a  neophyte  entering  upon  life  with 
a  view  to  play.  Precision  upon  such  a  point,  the  child 
can  understand.  But  if  you  merely  ask  him  of  his  past 
behaviour,  as  to  who  threw  such  a  stone,  for  instance, 

148 


CHILD'S   PLAY 

or  struck  such  and  such  a  match ;  or  whether  he  had 
looked  into  a  parcel  or  gone  by  a  forbidden  path, — why, 
he  can  see  no  moment  in  the  inquiry,  and  it  is  ten  to 
one,  he  has  already  half  forgotten  and  half  bemused  him- 
self with  subsequent  imaginings. 

It  would  be  easy  to  leave  them  in  their  native  cloud- 
land,  where  they  figure  so  prettily  —  pretty  like  flowers 
and  innocent  like  dogs.  They  will  come  out  of  their 
gardens  soon  enough,  and  have  to  go  into  offices  and 
the  witness-box,  Spare  them  yet  a  while,  O  conscien- 
tious parent !  Let  them  doze  among  their  playthings 
yet  a  little !  for  who  knows  what  a  rough,  warfaring  ex- 
istence lies  before  them  in  the  future  ? 


149 


WALKING  TOURS 

IT  must  not  be  imagined  that  a  walking  tour,  as  some 
would  have  us  fancy,  is  merely  a  better  or  worse  way 
of  seeing  the  country.  There  are  many  ways  of  seeing 
landscape  quite  as  good ;  and  none  more  vivid,  in  spite 
of  canting  dilettantes,  than  from  a  railway  train.  But 
landscape  on  a  walking  tour  is  quite  accessory.  He 
who  is  indeed  of  the  brotherhood  does  not  voyage  in 
quest  of  the  picturesque,  but  of  certain  jolly  humours  — 
of  the  hope  and  spirit  with  which  the  march  begins  at 
morning,  and  the  peace  and  spiritual  repletion  of  the 
evening's  rest.  He  cannot  tell  whether  he  puts  his  knap- 
sack on,  or  takes  it  off,  with  more  delight.  The  excite- 
ment of  the  departure  puts  him  in  key  for  that  of  the  ar- 
rival. Whatever  he  does  is  not  only  a  reward  in  itself, 
but  will  be  further  rewarded  in  the  sequel ;  and  so  pleas- 
ure leads  on  to  pleasure  in  an  endless  chain.  It  is  this 
that  so  few  can  understand ;  they  will  either  be  always 
lounging  or  always  at  five  miles  an  hour;  they  do  not 
play  off  the  one  against  the  other,  prepare  all  day  for  the 
evening,  and  all  evening  for  the  next  day.  And,  above 
all,  it  is  here  that  your  overwalker  fails  of  comprehen- 
sion. His  heart  rises  against  those  who  drink  their  cu- 
racoa  in  liqueur  glasses,  when  he  himself  can  swill  it  in 

150 


WALKING   TOURS 

a  brown  John.  He  will  not  believe  that  the  flavour  is 
more  delicate  in  the  smaller  dose.  He  will  not  believe 
that  to  walk  this  unconscionable  distance  is  merely  to 
stupefy  and  brutalise  himself,  and  come  to  his  inn,  at 
night,  with  a  sort  of  frost  on  his  five  wits,  and  a  starless 
night  of  darkness  in  his  spirit.  Not  for  him  the  mild 
luminous  evening  of  the  temperate  walker!  He  has  no- 
thing left  of  man  but  a  physical  need  for  bedtime  and  a 
double  nightcap;  and  even  his  pipe,  if  he  be  a  smoker, 
will  be  savourless  and  disenchanted.  It  is  the  fate  of 
such  an  one  to  take  twice  as  much  trouble  as  is  needed 
to  obtain  happiness,  and  miss  the  happiness  in  the  end ; 
he  is  the  man  of  the  proverb,  in  short,  who  goes  further 
and  fares  worse. 

Now,  to  be  properly  enjoyed,  a  walking  tour  should 
be  gone  upon  alone.  If  you  go  in  a  company,  or  even 
in  pairs,  it  is  no  longer  a  walking  tour  in  anything  but 
name ;  it  is  something  else  and  more  in  the  nature  of  a 
picnic.  A  walking  tour  should  be  gone  upon  alone, 
because  freedom  is  of  the  essence ;  because  you  should 
be  able  to  stop  and  go  on,  and  follow  this  way  or  that, 
as  the  freak  takes  you ;  and  because  you  must  have  your 
own  pace,  and  neither  trot  alongside  a  champion  walker, 
nor  mince  in  time  with  a  girl.  And  then  you  must  be 
open  to  all  impressions  and  let  your  thoughts  take  colour 
from  what  you  see.  You  should  be  as  a  pipe  for  any 
wind  to  play  upon.  "  1  cannot  see  the  wit,"  says  Haz- 
litt,  "of  walking  and  talking  at  the  same  time.  When 
I  am  in  the  country  I  wish  to  vegetate  like  the  country." 
—  which  is  the  gist  of  all  that  can  be  said  upon  the  mat- 
ter. There  should  be  no  cackle  of  voices  at  your  elbow, 
to  jar  on  the  meditative  silence  of  the  morning.     And  so 

151 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

long  as  a  man  is  reasoning  he  cannot  surrender  himself 
to  that  fine  intoxication  that  comes  of  much  motion  in 
the  open  air,  that  begins  in  a  sort  of  dazzle  and  sluggish- 
ness of  the  brain,  and  ends  in  a  peace  that  passes  com- 
prehension. 

During  the  first  day  or  so  of  any  tour  there  are  mo- 
ments of  bitterness,  when  the  traveller  feels  more  than 
coldly  towards  his  knapsack,  when  he  is  half  in  a  mind 
to  throw  it  bodily  over  the  hedge  and,  like  Christian  on 
a  similar  occasion,  "give  three  leaps  and  go  on  sing- 
ing." And  yet  it  soon  acquires  a  property  of  easiness. 
It  becomes  magnetic;  the  spirit  of  the  journey  enters 
into  it.  And  no  sooner  have  you  passed  the  straps  over 
your  shoulder  than  the  lees  of  sleep  are  cleared  from 
you,  you  pull  yourself  together  with  a  shake,  and  fall 
at  once  into  your  stride.  And  surely,  of  all  possible 
moods,  this,  in  which  a  man  takes  the  road,  is  the  best. 
Of  course,  if  he  will  keep  thinking  of  his  anxieties,  if  he 
will  open  the  merchant  Abudah's  chest  and  walk  arm- 
in-arm  with  the  hag — why,  wherever  he  is,  and  whether 
he  walk  fast  or  slow,  the  chances  are  that  he  will  not 
be  happy.  And  so  much  the  more  shame  to  himself! 
There  are  perhaps  thirty  men  setting  forth  at  that  same 
hour,  and  I  would  lay  a  large  wager  there  is  not  an- 
other dull  face  among  the  thirty.  It  would  be  a  fine 
thing  to  follow,  in  a  coat  of  darkness,  one  after  another 
of  these  wayfarers,  some  summer  morning,  for  the  first 
few  miles  upon  the  road.  This  one,  who  walks  fast, 
with  a  keen  look  in  his  eyes,  is  all  concentrated  in  his 
own  mind ;  he  is  up  at  his  loom,  weaving  and  weaving, 
to  set  the  landscape  to  words.  This  one  peers  about, 
as  he  goes,  among  the  grasses ;  he  waits  by  the  canal  to 

152 


WALKING   TOURS 

watch  the  dragon-flies;  he  leans  on  the  gate  of  the 
pasture,  and  cannot  look  enough  upon  the  complacent 
kine.  And  here  comes  another,  talking,  laughing,  and 
gesticulating  to  himself.  His  face  changes  from  time  to 
time,  as  indignation  flashes  from  his  eyes  or  anger  clouds 
his  forehead.  He  is  composing  articles,  delivering  ora- 
tions, and  conducting  the  most  impassioned  interviews, 
by  the  way.  A  little  farther  on,  and  it  is  as  like  as  not 
he  will  begin  to  sing.  And  well  for  him,  supposing  him 
to  be  no  great  master  in  that  art,  if  he  stumble  across 
no  stolid  peasant  at  a  corner;  for  on  such  an  occasion, 
I  scarcely  know  which  is  the  more  troubled,  or  whether 
it  is  worse  to  suffer  the  confusion  of  your  troubadour, 
or  the  unfeigned  alarm  of  your  clown.  A  sedentary 
population,  accustomed,  besides,  to  the  strange  mechan- 
ical bearing  of  the  common  tramp,  can  in  no  wise  ex- 
plain to  itself  the  gaiety  of  these  passers-by.  I  knew 
one  man  who  was  arrested  as  a  runaway  lunatic,  be- 
cause, although  a  full-grown  person  with  a  red  beard, 
he  skipped  as  he  went  like  a  child.  And  you  would  be 
astonished  if  I  were  to  tell  you  all  the  grave  and  learned 
heads  who  have  confessed  to  me  that,  when  on  walk- 
ing tours,  they  sang  —  and  sang  very  ill — and  had  a 
pair  of  red  ears  when,  as  described  above,  the  inauspi- 
cious peasant  plumped  into  their  arms  from  round  a 
corner.  And  here,  lest  you  should  think  I  am  exagger- 
ating, is  Hazlitt's  own  confession,  from  his  essay  On 
Going  a  Journey,  which  is  so  good  that  there  should  be 
a  tax  levied  on  all  who  have  not  read  it:  — 

"Give  me  the  clear  blue  sky  over  my  head,"  says  he, 
"and  the  green  turf  beneath  my  feet,  a  winding  road 
before  me,  and  a  three  hours'  march  to  dinner  —  and 

153 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

then  to  thinking !  It  is  hard  if  I  cannot  start  some  game  on 
these  lone  heaths.    I  laugh,  I  run,  I  leap,  I  sing  for  joy." 

Bravo!  After  that  adventure  of  my  friend  with  the 
policeman,  you  would  not  have  cared,  would  you,  to 
publish  that  in  the  first  person  ?  But  we  have  no  bravery 
nowadays,  and,  even  in  books,  must  all  pretend  to  be  as 
dull  and  foolish  as  our  neighbours.  It  was  not  so  with 
Hazlitt  And  notice  how  learned  he  is  (as,  indeed, 
throughout  the  essay)  in  the  theory  of  walking  tours. 
He  is  none  of  your  athletic  men  in  purple  stockings,  who 
walk  theirfifty  miles  a  day :  three  hours'  march  is  his  ideal. 
And  then  he  must  have  a  winding  road,  the  epicure! 

Yet  there  is  one  thing  I  object  to  in  these  words  of  his, 
one  thing  in  the  great  master's  practice  that  seems  to  me 
not  wholly  wise.  I  do  not  approve  of  that  leaping  and 
running.  Both  of  these  hurry  the  respiration;  they 
both  shake  up  the  brain  out  of  its  glorious  open-air  con- 
fusion ;  and  they  both  break  the  pace.  Uneven  walking 
is  not  so  agreeable  to  the  body,  and  it  distracts  and  irri- 
tates the  mind.  Whereas,  when  once  you  have  fallen 
into  an  equable  stride,  it  requires  no  conscious  thought 
from  you  to  keep  it  up,  and  yet  it  prevents  you  from 
thinking  earnestly  of  anything  else.  Like  knitting,  like 
the  work  of  a  copying  clerk,  it  gradually  neutralises  and 
sets  to  sleep  the  serious  activity  of  the  mind.  We  can 
think  of  this  or  that,  lightly  and  laughingly,  as  a  child 
thinks,  or  as  we  think  in  a  morning  doze;  we  can  make 
puns  or  puzzle  out  acrostics,  and  trifle  in  a  thousand 
ways  with  words  and  rhymes;  but  when  it  comes  to 
honest  work,  when  we  come  to  gather  ourselves  to- 
gether for  an  effort,  we  may  sound  the  trumpet  as  loud 
and  long  as  we  please ;  the  great  barons  of  the  mind  will 

'54 


WALKING   TOURS 

not  rally  to  the  standard,  but  sit,  each  one,  at  home, 
warming  his  hands  over  his  own  fire  and  brooding  on 
his  own  private  thought! 

In  the  course  of  a  day's  walk,  you  see,  there  is  much 
variance  in  the  mood.  From  the  exhilaration  of  the 
start,  to  the  happy  phlegm  of  the  arrival,  the  change  is 
certainly  great.  As  the  day  goes  on,  the  traveller  moves 
from  the  one  extreme  towards  the  other.  He  becomes 
more  and  more  incorporated  with  the  material  landscape, 
and  the  open-air  drunkenness  grows  upon  him  with 
great  strides,  until  he  posts  along  the  road,  and  sees 
everything  about  him,  as  in  a  cheerful  dream.  The  first 
is  certainly  brighter,  but  the  second  stage  is  the  more 
peaceful.  A  man  does  not  make  so  many  articles  to- 
wards the  end,  nor  does  he  laugh  aloud ;  but  the  purely 
animal  pleasures,  the  sense  of  physical  wellbeing,  the 
delight  of  every  inhalation,  of  every  time  the  muscles 
tighten  down  the  thigh,  console  him  for  the  absence  of 
the  others,  and  bring  him  to  his  destination  still  content. 

Nor  must  I  forget  to  say  a  word  on  bivouacs.  You 
come  to  a  milestone  on  a  hill,  or  some  place  where  deep 
ways  meet  under  trees;  and  off  goes  the  knapsack,  and 
down  you  sit  to  smoke  a  pipe  in  the  shade.  You  sink 
into  yourself,  and  the  birds  come  round  and  look  at  you ; 
and  your  smoke  dissipates  upon  the  afternoon  under  the 
blue  dome  of  heaven ;  and  the  sun  lies  warm  upon  your 
feet,  and  the  cool  air  visits  your  neck  and  turns  aside 
your  open  shirt.  If  you  are  not  happy,  you  must  have 
an  evil  conscience.  You  may  dally  as  long  as  you  like 
by  the  roadside.  It  is  almost  as  if  the  millennium  were 
arrived,  when  we  shall  throw  our  clocks  and  watches 
over  the  housetop,  and  remember  time  and  seasons  no 

«55 


"VIRG1N1BUS   PUERISQUE" 

more.  Not  to  keep  hours  for  a  lifetime  is,  I  was  going 
to  say,  to  live  for  ever.  You  have  no  idea,  unless  you 
have  tried  it,  how  endlessly  long  is  a  summer's  day, 
that  you  measure  out  only  by  hunger,  and  bring  to  an 
end  only  when  you  are  drowsy.  I  know  a  village 
where  there  are  hardly  any  clocks,  where  no  one  knows 
more  of  the  days  of  the  week  than  by  a  sort  of  instinct 
for  the  fete  on  Sundays,  and  where  only  one  person  can 
tell  you  the  day  of  the  month,  and  she  is  generally 
wrong;  and  if  people  were  aware  how  slow  Time 
journeyed  in  that  village,  and  what  armfuls  of  spare 
hours  he  gives,  over  and  above  the  bargain,  to  its  wise 
inhabitants,  I  believe  there  would  be  a  stampede  out  of 
London,  Liverpool,  Paris,  and  a  variety  of  large  towns, 
where  the  clocks  lose  their  heads,  and  shake  the  hours 
out  each  one  faster  than  the  other,  as  though  they  were 
all  in  a  wager.  And  all  these  foolish  pilgrims  would 
each  bring  his  own  misery  along  with  him,  in  a  watch- 
pocket!  It  is  to  be  noticed,  there  were  no  clocks  and 
watches  in  the  much-vaunted  days  before  the  flood.  It 
follows,  of  course,  there  were  no  appointments,  and 
punctuality  was  not  yet  thought  upon.  "Though  ye 
take  from  a  covetous  man  all  his  treasure,"  says  Milton, 
"he  has  yet  one  jewel  left;  ye  cannot  deprive  him  of 
his  covetousness."  And  so  I  would  say  of  a  modern 
man  of  business,  you  may  do  what  you  will  for  him, 
put  him  in  Eden,  give  him  the  elixir  of  life  —  he  has  still 
a  flaw  at  heart,  he  still  has  his  business  habits.  Now, 
there  is  no  time  when  business  habits  are  more  mitigated 
than  on  a  walking  tour.  And  so  during  these  halts,  as 
I  say,  you  will  feel  almost  free. 
But  it  is  at  night,  and  after  dinner,  that  the  best  hour 
156 


WALKING   TOURS 

comes.  There  are  no  such  pipes  to  be  smoked  as  those 
that  follow  a  good  day's  march ;  the  flavour  of  the  tobacco 
is  a  thing  to  be  remembered,  it  is  so  dry  and  aromatic, 
so  full  and  so  fine.  If  you  wind  up  the  evening  with 
grog,  you  will  own  there  was  never  such  grog;  at  every 
sip  a  jocund  tranquillity  spreads  about  your  limbs,  and 
sits  easily  in  your  heart.  If  you  read  a  book  —  and  you 
will  never  do  so  save  by  fits  and  starts  —  you  find  the 
language  strangely  racy  and  harmonious;  words  take 
a  new  meaning;  single  sentences  possess  the  ear  for 
half  an  hour  together;  and  the  writer  endears  himself  to 
you,  at  every  page,  by  the  nicest  coincidence  of  senti- 
ment. It  seems  as  if  it  were  a  book  you  had  written 
yourself  in  a  dream.  To  all  we  have  read  on  such  oc- 
casions we  look  back  with  special  favour.  "  It  was  on 
the  ioth  of  April,  1798,"  says  Hazlitt,  with  amorous  pre- 
cision, "  that  I  sat  down  to  a  volume  of  the  new  Heloise, 
at  the  Inn  at  Llangollen,  over  a  bottle  of  sherry  and  a 
cold  chicken."  I  should  wish  to  quote  more,  for  though 
we  are  mighty  fine  fellows  nowadays,  we  cannot  write 
like  Hazlitt.  And,  talking  of  that,  a  volume  of  Hazlitfs 
essays  would  be  a  capital  pocket-book  on  such  a  journey ; 
so  would  a  volume  of  Heine's  songs;  and  for  Tristram 
Shandy  I  can  pledge  a  fair  experience. 

If  the  evening  be  fine  and  warm,  there  is  nothing  bet- 
ter in  life  than  to  lounge  before  the  inn  door  in  the  sun- 
set, or  lean  over  the  parapet  of  the  bridge,  to  watch  the 
weeds  and  the  quick  fishes.  It  is  then,  if  ever,  that  you 
taste  Joviality  to  the  full  significance  of  that  audacious 
word.  Your  muscles  are  so  agreeably  slack,  you  feel  so 
clean  and  so  strong  and  so  idle,  that  whether  you  move 
or  sit  still,  whatever  you  do  is  done  with  pride  and  a 

'57 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

kingly  sort  of  pleasure.  You  fall  in  talk  with  any  one, 
wise  or  foolish,  drunk  or  sober.  And  it  seems  as  if  a  hot 
walk  purged  you,  more  than  of  anything  else,  of  all  nar- 
rowness and  pride,  and  left  curiosity  to  play  its  part 
freely,  as  in  a  child  or  a  man  of  science.  You  lay  aside 
all  your  own  hobbies,  to  watch  provincial  humours  de- 
velop themselves  before  you,  now  as  a  laughable  farce, 
and  now  grave  and  beautiful  like  an  old  tale. 

Or  perhaps  you  are  left  to  your  own  company  for  the 
night,  and  surly  weather  imprisons  you  by  the  fire.  You 
may  remember  how  Burns,  numbering  past  pleasures, 
dwells  upon  the  hours  when  he  has  been  "happy  think- 
ing. "  It  is  a  phrase  that  may  well  perplex  a  poor  modern, 
girt  about  on  every  side  by  clocks  and  chimes,  and 
haunted,  even  at  night,  by  flaming  dial-plates.  For  we 
are  all  so  busy,  and  have  so  many  far-off  projects  to  re- 
alise, and  castles  in  the  fire  to  turn  into  solid  habitable 
mansions  on  a  gravel  soil,  that  we  can  find  no  time  for 
pleasure  trips  into  the  Land  of  Thought  and  among  the 
Hills  of  Vanity.  Changed  times,  indeed,  when  we  must 
sit  all  night,  beside  the  fire,  with  folded  hands;  and  a 
changed  world  for  most  of  us,  when  we  find  we  can 
pass  the  hours  without  discontent,  and  be  happy  think- 
ing. We  are  in  such  haste  to  be  doing,  to  be  writing, 
to  be  gathering  gear,  to  make  our  voice'  audible  a  mo- 
ment in  the  derisive  silence  of  eternity,  that  we  forget 
that  one  thing,  of  which  these  are  but  the  parts  — 
namely,  to  live.  We  fall  in  love,  we  drink  hard,  we 
run  to  and  fro  upon  the  earth  like  frightened  sheep. 
And  now  you  are  to  ask  yourself  if,  when  all  is  done, 
you  would  not  have  been  better  to  sit  by  the  fire  at 
home,  and  be  happy  thinking.     To  sit  still  and  con- 

158 


WALKING   TOURS 

template,  —  to  remember  the  faces  of  women  without 
desire,  to  be  pleased  by  the  great  deeds  of  men  without 
envy,  to  be  everything  and  everywhere  in  sympathy, 
and  yet  content  to  remain  where  and  what  you  are  — 
is  not  this  to  know  both  wisdom  and  virtue,  and  to 
dwell  with  happiness  ?  After  all,  it  is  not  they  who 
carry  flags,  but  they  who  look  upon  it  from  a  private 
chamber,  who  have  the  fun  of  the  procession.  And  once 
you  are  at  that,  you  are  in  the  very  humour  of  all  social 
heresy.  It  is  no  time  for  shuffling,  or  for  big,  empty 
words.  If  you  ask  yourself  what  you  mean  by  fame, 
riches,  or  learning,  the  answer  is  far  to  seek ;  and  you 
go  back  into  that  kingdom  of  light  imaginations,  which 
seem  so  vain  in  the  eyes  of  Philistines  perspiring  after 
wealth,  and  so  momentous  to  those  who  are  stricken 
with  the  disproportions  of  the  world,  and,  in  the  face 
of  the  gigantic  stars,  cannot  stop  to  split  differences  be- 
tween two  degrees  of  the  inflnitesimally  small,  such  as  a 
tobacco  pipe  or  the  Roman  Empire,  a  million  of  money 
or  a  fiddlestick's  end. 

You  lean  from  the  window,  your  last  pipe  reeking 
whitely  into  the  darkness,  your  body  full  of  delicious 
pains,  your  mind  enthroned  in  the  seventh  circle  of 
content;  when  suddenly  the  mood  changes,  the 
weathercock  goes  about,  and  you  ask  yourself  one 
question  more:  whether,  for  the  interval,  you  have 
been  the  wisest  philosopher  or  the  most  egregious  of 
donkeys  ?  Human  experience  is  not  yet  able  to  reply; 
but  at  least  you  have  had  a  fine  moment,  and  looked  down 
upon  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth.  And  whether  it  was 
wise  or  foolish,  to-morrow's  travel  will  carry  you,  body 
and  mind,  into  some  different  parish  of  the  infinite. 

1 59 


pan's  pipes 

THE  world  in  which  we  live  has  been  variously  said 
and  sung  by  the  most  ingenious  poets  and  phi- 
losophers: these  reducing  it  to  formulae  and  chemical 
ingredients,  those  striking  the  lyre  in  high-sounding 
measures  for  the  handiwork  of  God.  What  experience 
supplies  is  of  a  mingled  tissue,  and  the  choosing  mind 
has  much  to  reject  before  it  can  get  together  the  mate- 
rials of  a  theory.  Dew  and  thunder,  destroying  Attila 
and  the  Spring  lambkins,  belong  to  an  order  of  con- 
trasts which  no  repetition  can  assimilate.  There  is  an 
uncouth,  outlandish  strain  throughout  the  web  of  the 
world,  as  from  a  vexatious  planet  in  the  house  of  life. 
Things  are  not  congruous  and  wear  strange  disguises : 
the  consummate  flower  is  fostered  out  of  dung,  and 
after  nourishing  itself  awhile  with  heaven's  delicate  dis- 
tillations, decays  again  into  indistinguishable  soil;  and 
with  Caesar's  ashes,  Hamlet  tells  us,  the  urchins  make 
dirt  pies  and  filthily  besmear  their  countenance.  Nay, 
the  kindly  shine  of  summer,  when  tracked  home  with 
the  scientific  spyglass,  is  found  to  issue  from  the  most 
portentous  nightmare  of  the  universe — the  great,  con- 
flagrant  sun:  a  world  of  hell's  squibs,  tumultuary, 
roaring  aloud,  inimical  to  life.     The  sun  itself  is  enough 

l6o 


PAN'S   PIPES 

to  disgust  a  human  being  of  the  scene  which  he  in- 
habits; and  you  would  not  fancy  there  was  a  green  or 
habitable  spot  in  the  universe  thus  awfully  lighted  up. 
And  yet  it  is  by  the  blaze  of  such  a  conflagration,  to 
which  the  fire  of  Rome  was  but  a  spark,  that  we  do 
all  our  fiddling,  and  hold  domestic  tea-parties  at  the 
arbour  door. 

The  Greeks  figured  Pan,  the  god  of  Nature,  now  ter- 
ribly stamping  his  foot,  so  that  armies  were  dispersed ; 
now  by  the  woodside  on  a  summer  noon  trolling  on  his 
pipe  until  he  charmed  the  hearts  of  upland  ploughmen. 
And  the  Greeks,  in  so  figuring,  uttered  the  last  word  of 
human  experience.  To  certain  smoke-dried  spirits  mat- 
ter and  motion  and  elastic  ethers,  and  the  hypothesis  of 
this  or  that  other  spectacled  professor,  tell  a  speaking 
story ;  but  for  youth  and  all  ductile  and  congenial  minds, 
Pan  is  not  dead,  but  of  all  the  classic  hierarchy  alone 
survives  in  triumph ;  goat-footed,  with  a  gleeful  and  an 
angry  look,  the  type  of  the  shaggy  world :  and  in  every 
wood,  if  you  go  with  a  spirit  properly  prepared,  you 
shall  hear  the  note  of  his  pipe. 

For  it  is  a  shaggy  world,  and  yet  studded  with  gar- 
dens; where  the  salt  and  tumbling  sea  receives  clear 
rivers  running  from  among  reeds  and  lilies ;  fruitful  and 
austere;  a  rustic  world;  sunshiny,  lewd,  and  cruel. 
What  is  it  the  birds  sing  among  the  trees  in  pairing- 
time  ?  What  means  the  sound  of  the  rain  falling  far  and 
wide  upon  the  leafy  forest  ?  To  what  tune  does  the  fish- 
erman whistle,  as  he  hauls  in  his  net  at  morning,  and 
the  bright  fish  are  heaped  inside  the  boat  ?  These  are 
all  airs  upon  Pan's  pipe;  he  it  was  who  gave  them 
breath  in  the  exultation  of  his  heart,  and  gleefully  modu- 
li 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

lated  their  outflow  with  his  lips  and  fingers.  The  coarse 
mirth  of  herdsmen,  shaking  the  dells  with  laughter  and 
striking  out  high  echoes  from  the  rock;  the  tune  of 
moving  feet  in  the  lamplit  city,  or  on  the  smooth  ball- 
room floor;  the  hooves  of  many  horses,  beating  the 
wide  pastures  in  alarm ;  the  song  of  hurrying  rivers ;  the 
colour  of  clear  skies ;  and  smiles  and  the  live  touch  of 
hands ;  and  the  voice  of  things,  and  their  significant  look, 
and  the  renovating  influence  they  breathe  forth  —  these 
are  his  joyful  measures,  to  which  the  whole  earth  treads 
in  choral  harmony.  To  this  music  the  young  lambs 
bound  as  to  a  tabor,  and  the  London  shop-girl  skips 
rudely  in  the  dance.  For  it  puts  a  spirit  of  gladness  in 
all  hearts ;  and  to  look  on  the  happy  side  of  nature  is 
common,  in  their  hours,  to  all  created  things.  Some 
are  vocal  under  a  good  influence,  are  pleasing  when- 
ever they  are  pleased,  and  hand  on  their  happiness  to 
others,  as  a  child  who,  looking  upon  lovely  things, 
looks  lovely.  Some  leap  to  the  strains  with  unapt  foot, 
and  make  a  halting  figure  in  the  universal  dance.  And 
some,  like  sour  spectators  at  the  play,  receive  the  music 
into  their  hearts  with  an  unmoved  countenance,  and 
walk  like  strangers  through  the  general  rejoicing.  But 
let  him  feign  never  so  carefully,  there  is  not  a  man  but 
has  his  pulses  shaken  when  Pan  trolls  out  a  stave  of 
ecstasy  and  sets  the  world  a-singing. 

Alas  if  that  were  all !  But  oftentimes  the  air  is  changed ; 
and  in  the  screech  of  the  night  wind,  chasing  navies, 
subverting  the  tall  ships  and  the  rooted  cedar  of  the 
hills ;  in  the  random  deadly  levin  or  the  fury  of  head- 
long floods,  we  recognise  the  ''dread  foundation"  of 
life  and  the  anger  in  Pan's  heart.     Earth  wages  open 

162 


PAN'S   PIPES 

war  against  her  children,  and  under  her  softest  touch 
hides  treacherous  claws.  The  cool  waters  invite  us  in 
to  drown;  the  domestic  hearth  burns  up  in  the  hour  of 
sleep,  and  makes  an  end  of  all.  Everything  is  good  or 
bad,  helpful  or  deadly,  not  in  itself,  but  by  its  circum- 
stances. For  a  few  bright  days  in  England  the  hurri- 
cane must  break  forth  and  the  North  Sea  pay  a  toll  of 
populous  ships.  And  when  the  universal  music  has 
led  lovers  into  the  paths  of  dalliance,  confident  of  Nat- 
ure's sympathy,  suddenly  the  air  shifts  into  a  minor,  and 
death  makes  a  clutch  from  his  ambuscade  below  the 
bed  of  marriage.  For  death  is  given  in  a  kiss ;  the  dear- 
est kindnesses  are  fatal;  and  into  this  life,  where  one 
thing  preys  upon  another,  the  child  too  often  makes  its 
entrance  from  the  mother's  corpse.  It  is  no  wonder, 
with  so  traitorous  a  scheme  of  things,  if  the  wise  peo- 
ple who  created  for  us  the  idea  of  Pan  thought  that  of 
all  fears  the  fear  of  him  was  the  most  terrible,  since  it 
embraces  all.  And  still  we  preserve  the  phrase :  a  panic 
terror.  To  reckon  dangers  too  curiously,  to  hearken  too 
intently  for  the  threat  that  runs  through  all  the  winning 
music  of  the  world,  to  hold  back  the  hand  from  the 
rose  because  of  the  thorn,  and  from  life  because  of  death : 
this  it  is  to  be  afraid  of  Pan.  Highly  respectable  citi- 
zens who  flee  life's  pleasures  and  responsibilities  and 
keep,  with  upright  hat,  upon  the  midway  of  custom, 
avoiding  the  right  hand  and  the  left,  the  ecstasies  and 
the  agonies,  how  surprised  they  would  be  if  they  could 
hear  their  attitude  mythologically  expressed,  and  knew 
themselves  as  tooth-chattering  ones,  who  flee  from  Nat- 
ure because  they  fear  the  hand  of  Nature's  God !  Shrilly 
sound  Pan's  pipes ;  and  behold  the  banker  instantly  con- 

16} 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQUE" 

cealed  in  the  bank  parlour!     For  to  distrust  one's  im- 
pulses is  to  be  recreant  to  Pan. 

There  are  moments  when  the  mind  refuses  to  be  satis- 
fied with  evolution,  and  demands  a  ruddier  presentation 
of  the  sum  of  man's  experience.  Sometimes  the  mood 
is  brought  about  by  laughter  at  the  humorous  side  of 
life,  as  when,  abstracting  ourselves  from  earth,  we 
imagine  people  plodding  on  foot,  or  seated  in  ships  and 
speedy  trains,  with  the  planet  all  the  while  whirling  in 
the  opposite  direction,  so  that,  for  all  their  hurry,  they 
travel  back-foremost  through  the  universe  of  space. 
Sometimes  it  comes  by  the  spirit  of  delight,  and  some- 
times by  the  spirit  of  terror.  At  least,  there  will  always 
be  hours  when  we  refuse  to  be  put  off  by  the  feint  of 
explanation,  nicknamed  science;  and  demand  instead 
some  palpitating  image  of  our  estate,  that  shall  repre- 
sent the  troubled  and  uncertain  element  in  which  we 
dwell,  and  satisfy  reason  by  the  means  of  art.  Science 
writes  of  the  world  as  if  with  the  cold  finger  of  a  starfish; 
it  is  all  true ;  but  what  is  it  when  compared  to  the  re- 
ality of  which  it  discourses  ?  where  hearts  beat  high  in 
April,  and  death  strikes,  and  hills  totter  in  the  earth- 
quake, and  there  is  a  glamour  over  all  the  objects  of 
sight,  and  a  thrill  in  all  noises  for  the  ear,  and  Romance 
herself  has  made  her  dwelling  among  men  ?  So  we 
come  back  to  the  old  myth,  and  hear  the  goat-footed 
piper  making  the  music  which  is  itself  the  charm  and 
terror  of  things ;  and  when  a  glen  invites  our  visiting 
footsteps,  fancy  that  Pan  leads  us  thither  with  a  gracious 
tremolo;  or  when  our  hearts  quail  at  the  thunder  of  the 
cataract,  tell  ourselves  that  he  has  stamped  his  hoof  in 
the  nigh  thicket. 

164 


A   PLEA    FOR  GAS   LAMPS 

CITIES  given,  the  problem  was  to  light  them.  How 
to  conduct  individual  citizens  about  the  burgess- 
warren,  when  once  heaven  had  withdrawn  its  leading 
luminary  ?  or  —  since  we  live  in  a  scientific  age  —  when 
once  our  spinning  planet  has  turned  its  back  upon  the 
sun  ?  The  moon,  from  time  to  time,  was  doubtless  very 
helpful ;  the  stars  had  a  cheery  look  among  the  chimney- 
pots ;  and  a  cresset  here  and  there,  on  church  or  citadel, 
produced  a  fine  pictorial  effect,  and,  in  places  where  the 
ground  lay  unevenly,  held  out  the  right  hand  of  conduct 
to  the  benighted.  But  sun,  moon,  and  stars  abstracted 
or  concealed,  the  night-faring  inhabitant  had  to  fall  back 
—  we  speak  on  the  authority  of  old  prints  —  upon  stable 
lanthorns,  two  stories  in  height.  Many  holes,  drilled  in 
the  conical  turret-roof  of  this  vagabond  Pharos,  let  up 
spouts  of  dazzlement  into  the  bearer's  eyes ;  and  as  he 
paced  forth  in  the  ghostly  darkness,  carrying  his  own 
sun  by  a  ring  about  his  finger,  day  and  night  swung  to 
and  fro  and  up  and  down  about  his  footsteps.  Black- 
ness haunted  his  path ;  he  was  beleaguered  by  goblins 
as  he  went;  and,  curfew  being  struck,  he  found  no 
light  but  that  he  travelled  in  throughout  the  township. 
Closely  following  on  this  epoch  of  migratory  lanthorns 
1 65 


"VIRGINIBUS    PUER1SQUE" 

in  a  world  of  extinction,  came  the  era  of  oil-lights,  hard 
to  kindle,  easy  to  extinguish,  pale  and  wavering  in  the 
hour  of  their  endurance.  Rudely  puffed  the  winds  of 
heaven ;  roguishly  clomb  up  the  all-destructive  urchin ; 
and,  lo !  in  a  moment  night  re-established  her  void  em- 
pire, and  the  cit  groped  along  the  wall,  suppered  but 
bedless,  occult  from  guidance,  and  sorrily  wading  in  the 
kennels.  As  if  gamesome  winds  and  gamesome  youths 
were  not  sufficient,  it  was  the  habit  to  sling  these  feeble 
luminaries  from  house  to  house  above  the  fairway. 
There,  on  invisible  cordage,  let  them  swing!  And  sup- 
pose some  crane-necked  general  to  go  speeding  by  on 
a  tall  charger,  spurring  the  destiny  of  nations,  red-hot  in 
expedition,  there  would  indubitably  be  some  effusion  of 
military  blood,  and  oaths,  and  a  certain  crash  of  glass ; 
and  while  the  chieftain  rode  forward  with  a  purple  cox- 
comb, the  street  would  be  left  to  original  darkness,  un- 
piloted,  unvoyageable,  a  province  of  the  desert  night. 

The  conservative,  looking  before  and  after,  draws  from 
each  contemplation  the  matter  for  content.  Out  of  the 
age  of  gas  lamps  he  glances  back  slightingly  at  the  mirk 
and  glimmer  in  which  his  ancestors  wandered ;  his  heart 
waxes  jocund  at  the  contrast ;  nor  do  his  lips  refrain  from 
a  stave,  in  the  highest  style  of  poetry,  lauding  progress 
and  the  golden  mean.  When  gas  first  spread  along  a 
city,  mapping  it  forth  about  evenfall  for  the  eye  of  ob- 
servant birds,  a  new  age  had  begun  for  sociality  and 
corporate  pleasure-seeking,  and  begun  with  proper  cir- 
cumstancej  becoming  its  own  birthright.  The  work  of 
Prometheus  had  advanced  by  another  stride.  Mankind 
and  its  supper  parties  were  no  longer  at  the  mercy  of  a 
few  miles  of  sea-fog;  sundown  no  longer  emptied  the 

166 


A   PLEA   FOR  GAS   LAMPS 

promenade;  and  the  day  was  lengthened  out  to  every 
man's  fancy.  The  city-folk  had  stars  of  their  own ;  bid- 
dable, domesticated  stars. 

It  is  true  that  these  were  not  so  steady,  nor  yet  so 
clear,  as  their  originals ;  nor  indeed  was  their  lustre  so 
elegant  as  that  of  the  best  wax  candles.  But  then  the 
gas  stars,  being  nearer  at  hand,  were  more  practically 
efficacious  than  Jupiter  himself.  It  is  true,  again,  that 
they  did  not  unfold  their  rays  with  the  appropriate  spon- 
taneity of  the  planets,  coming  out  along  the  firmament 
one  after  another,  as  the  need  arises.  But  the  lamp- 
lighters took  to  their  heels  every  evening,  and  ran  with 
a  good  heart.  It  was  pretty  to  see  man  thus  emulating 
the  punctuality  of  heaven's  orbs;  and  though  perfection 
was  not  absolutely  reached,  and  now  and  then  an  indi- 
vidual may  have  been  knocked  on  the  head  by  the  lad- 
der of  the  flying  functionary,  yet  people  commended  his 
zeal  in  a  proverb,  and  taught  their  children  to  say, "  God 
bless  the  lamplighter!"  And  since  his  passage  was  a 
piece  of  the  day's  programme,  the  children  were  well 
pleased  to  repeat  the  benediction,  not,  of  course,  in  so 
many  words,  which  would  have  been  improper,  but  in 
some  chaste  circumlocution,  suitable  for  infant  lips. 

God  bless  him,  indeed !  For  the  term  of  his  twilight 
diligence  is  near  at  hand ;  and  for  not  much  longer  shall 
we  watch  him  speeding  up  the  street  and,  at  measured 
intervals,  knocking  another  luminous  hole  into  the 
dusk.  The  Greeks  would  have  made  a  noble  myth  of 
such  an  one ;  how  he  distributed  starlight,  and,  as  soon 
as  the  need  was  over,  re-collected  it;  and  the  little  bull's- 
eye,  which  was  his  instrument,  and  held  enough  fire  to 
kindle  a  whole  parish,  would  have  been  fitly  commem- 

167 


"VIRGINIBUS   PUERISQLJE" 

orated  in  the  legend.  Now,  like  all  heroic  tasks,  his 
labours  draw  towards  apotheosis,  and  in  the  light  of 
victory  himself  shall  disappear.  For  another  advance 
has  been  effected.  Our  tame  stars  are  to  come  out  in 
future,  not  one  by  one,  but  all  in  a  body  and  at  once. 
A  sedate  electrician  somewhere  in  a  back  office  touches 
a  spring  —  and  behold!  from  one  end  to  another  of  the 
city,  from  east  to  west,  from  the  Alexandra  to  the  Crys- 
tal Palace,  there  is  light!  Fiat  Lux,  says  the  sedate 
electrician.  What  a  spectacle,  on  some  clear,  dark 
nightfall,  from  the  edge  of  Hampstead  Hill,  when  in  a 
moment,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  the  design  of  the 
monstrous  city  flashes  into  vision  —  a  glittering  hiero- 
glyph many  square  miles  in  extent;  and  when,  to 
borrow  and  debase  an  image,  all  the  evening  street- 
lamps  burst  together  into  song!  Such  is  the  spectacle 
of  the  future,  preluded  the  other  day  by  the  experiment 
in  Pall  Mall.  Star-rise  by  electricity,  the  most  roman- 
tic flight  of  civilisation;  the  compensatory  benefit  for 
an  innumerable  array  of  factories  and  bankers'  clerks. 
To  the  artistic  spirit  exercised  about  Thirlmere,  here  is 
a  crumb  of  consolation ;  consolatory,  at  least,  to  such 
of  them  as  look  out  upon  the  world  through  seeing  eyes, 
and  contentedly  accept  beauty  where  it  comes. 

But  the  conservative,  while  lauding  progress,  is  ever 
timid  of  innovation ;  his  is  the  hand  upheld  to  counsel 
pause;  his  is  the  signal  advising  slow  advance.  The 
word  electricity  now  sounds  the  note  of  danger.  In 
Paris,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Passage  des  Princes,  in  the 
place  before  the  Opera  portico,  and  in  the  Rue  Drouot 
at  the  Figaro  office,  a  new  sort  of  urban  star  now 
shines  out  nightly,  horrible,  unearthly,  obnoxious  to 

168 


A    PLEA    FOR   GAS   LAMPS 

the  human  eye;  a  lamp  for  a  nightmare!  Such  a  light 
as  this  should  shine  only  on  murders  and  public  crime, 
or  along  the  corridors  of  lunatic  asylums,  a  horror  to 
heighten  horror.  To  look  at  it  only  once  is  to  fall  in 
love  with  gas,  which  gives  a  warm  domestic  radiance 
fit  to  eat  by.  Mankind,  you  would  have  thought, 
might  have  remained  content  with  what  Prometheus 
stole  for  them  and  not  gone  fishing  the  profound 
heaven  with  kites  to  catch  and  domesticate  the  wildfire 
of  the  storm.  Yet  here  we  have  the  levin  brand  at  our 
doors,  and  it  is  proposed  that  we  should  henceforward 
take  our  walks  abroad  in  the  glare  of  permanent  light- 
ning. A  man  need  not  be  very  superstitious  if  he 
scruple  to  follow  his  pleasures  by  the  light  of  the  Ter- 
ror that  Flieth,  nor  very  epicurean  if  he  prefer  to  see 
the  face  of  beauty  more  becomingly  displayed.  That 
ugly  blinding  glare  may  not  improperly  advertise  the 
home  of  slanderous  Figaro,  which  is  a  back-shop  to 
the  infernal  regions ;  but  where  soft  joys  prevail,  where 
people  are  convoked  to  pleasure  and  the  philosopher 
looks  on  smiling  and  silent,  where  love  and  laughter 
and  deifying  wine  abound,  there,  at  least,  let  the  old 
mild  lustre  shine  upon  the  ways  of  man. 


109 


MEMORIES  AND  PORTRAITS 


TO 

MY   MOTHER 

IN   THE   NAME   OF  PAST  JOY   AND   PRESENT   SORROW 

f  S>efcfcate 

THESE   MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 


S.S.  "Ludgate  Hill" 

within  sight  of  Cape  Race 


NOTE 

This  volume  of  papers,  unconnected  as  they  are,  it 
will  be  better  to  read  through  from  the  beginning,  rather 
than  dip  into  at  random.  A  certain  thread  of  meaning 
binds  them.  Memories  of  childhood  and  youth,  por- 
traits of  those  who  have  gone  before  us  in  the  battle,  — 
taken  together,  they  build  up  a  face  that  "  I  have  loved 
long  since  and  lost  awhile,"  the  face  of  what  was  once 
myself.  This  has  come  by  accident;  I  had  no  design 
at  first  to  be  autobiographical ;  I  was  but  led  away  by 
the  charm  of  beloved  memories  and  by  regret  for  the 
irrevocable  dead ;  and  when  my  own  young  face  (which 
is  a  face  of  the  dead  also)  began  to  appear  in  the  well  as 
by  a  kind  of  magic,  I  was  the  first  to  be  surprised  at  the 
occurrence. 

My  grandfather  the  pious  child,  my  father  the  idle 
eager  sentimental  youth,  I  have  thus  unconsciously  ex- 
posed. Of  their  descendant,  the  person  of  to-day,  I 
wish  to  keep  the  secret :  not  because  I  love  him  better, 
but  because,  with  him,  I  am  still  in  a  business  partner- 
ship, and  cannot  divide  interests. 

Of  the  papers  which  make  up  the  volume,  some  have 
appeared  already  in  The  Cornhill,  Longman 's,  Scribner, 
The  English  Illustrated,  The  Magazine  of  Art,  The  Con- 
temporary Review;  three  are  here  in  print  for  the  first 
time ;  and  two  others  have  enjoyed  only  what  may  be 
regarded  as  a  private  circulation. 

R.  L.  S. 


I.    THE  FOREIGNER  AT   HOME 

"  This  is  no  my  ain  house; 
I  ken  by  the  biggin'  o't." 

TWO  recent  books,1  one  by  Mr.  Grant  White  on 
England,  one  on  France  by  the  diabolically  clever 
Mr.  Hillebrand,  may  well  have  set  people  thinking  on 
the  divisions  of  races  and  nations.  Such  thoughts  should 
arise  with  particular  congruity  and  force  to  inhabitants 
of  that  United  Kingdom,  peopled  from  so  many  different 
stocks,  babbling  so  many  different  dialects,  and  offering 
in  its  extent  such  singular  contrasts,  from  the  busiest 
over-population  to  the  unkindliest  desert,  from  the  Black 
Country  to  the  Moor  of  Rannoch.  It  is  not  only  when 
we  cross  the  seas  that  we  go  abroad ;  there  are  foreign 
parts  of  England;  and  the  race  that  has  conquered  so 
wide  an  empire  has  not  yet  managed  to  assimilate  the 
islands  whence  she  sprang.  Ireland,  Wales,  and  the 
Scottish  mountains  still  cling,  in  part,  to  their  old  Gaelic 
speech.  It  was  but  the  other  day  that  English  triumphed 
in  Cornwall,  and  they  still  show  in  Mousehole,  on  St. 
Michael's  Bay,  the  house  of  the  last  Cornish-speaking 
woman.  English  itself,  which  will  now  frank  the  trav- 
eller through  the  most  of  North  America,  through  the 
greater  South  Sea  Islands,  in  India,  along  much  of  the 

i i 88 i . 
'77 


MEMORIES   AND    PORTRAITS 

coast  of  Africa,  and  in  the  ports  of  China  and  Japan,  is 
still  to  be  heard,  in  its  home  country,  in  half  a  hundred 
varying  stages  of  transition.  You  may  go  all  over  the 
States,  and  —  setting  aside  the  actual  intrusion  and  in- 
fluence of  foreigners,  negro,  French,  or  Chinese  —  you 
shall  scarce  meet  with  so  marked  a  difference  of  accent 
as  in  the  forty  miles  between  Edinburgh  and  Glasgow, 
or  of  dialect  as  in  the  hundred  miles  between  Edinburgh 
and  Aberdeen.  Book  English  has  gone  round  the  world, 
but  at  home  we  still  preserve  the  racy  idioms  of  our 
fathers,  and  every  county,  in  some  parts  every  dale,  has 
its  own  quality  of  speech,  vocal  or  verbal.  In  like  man- 
ner, local  custom  and  prejudice,  even  local  religion  and 
local  law,  linger  on  into  the  latter  end  of  the  nineteenth 
century  —  imperia  in  imperio,  foreign  things  at  home. 

In  spite  of  these  promptings  to  reflection,  ignorance 
of  his  neighbours  is  the  character  of  the  typical  John 
Bull.  His  is  a  domineering  nature,  steady  in  fight,  im- 
perious to  command,  but  neither  curious  nor  quick  about 
the  life  of  others.  In  French  colonies,  and  still  more  in 
the  Dutch,  I  have  read  that  there  is  an  immediate  and 
lively  contact  between  the  dominant  and  the  dominated 
race,  that  a  certain  sympathy  is  begotten,  or  at  the  least 
a  transfusion  of  prejudices,  making  life  easier  for  both. 
But  the  Englishman  sits  apart,  bursting  with  pride  and 
ignorance.  He  figures  among  his  vassals  in  the  hour  of 
peace  with  the  same  disdainful  air  that  led  him  on  to 
victory.  A  passing  enthusiasm  for  some  foreign  art  or 
fashion  may  deceive  the  world,  it  cannot  impose  upon 
his  intimates.  He  may  be  amused  by  a  foreigner  as  by 
a  monkey,  but  he  will  never  condescend  to  study  him 
with  any  patience.    Miss  Bird,  an  authoress  with  whom 


THE   FOREIGNER  AT   HOME 

I  profess  myself  in  love,  declares  all  the  viands  of  Japan 
to  be  uneatable  —  a  staggering  pretension.  So,  when 
the  Prince  of  Wales's  marriage  was  celebrated  at  Men- 
tone  by  a  dinner  to  the  Mentonese,  it  was  proposed  to 
give  them  solid  English  fare  —  roast  beef  and  plum  pud- 
ding, and  no  tomfoolery.  Here  we  have  either  pole  of 
the  Britannic  folly.  We  will  not  eat  the  food  of  any  for- 
eigner; nor,  when  we  have  the  chance,  will  we  suffer 
him  to  eat  of  it  himself.  The  same  spirit  inspired  Miss 
Bird's  American  missionaries,  who  had  come  thousands 
of  miles  to  change  the  faith  of  Japan,  and  openly  pro- 
fessed their  ignorance  of  the  religions  they  were  trying 
to  supplant. 

I  quote  an  American  in  this  connection  without  scruple. 
Uncle  Sam  is  better  than  John  Bull,  but  he  is  tarred  with 
the  English  stick.  For  Mr.  Grant  White  the  States  are 
the  New  England  States  and  nothing  more.  He  won- 
ders at  the  amount  of  drinking  in  London ;  let  him  try 
San  Francisco.  He  wittily  reproves  English  ignorance 
as  to  the  status  of  women  in  America ;  but  has  he  not 
himself  forgotten  Wyoming  ?  The  name  Yankee,  of 
which  he  is  so  tenacious,  is  used  over  the  most  of 
the  great  Union  as  a  term  of  reproach.  The  Yankee 
States,  of  which  he  is  so  staunch  a  subject,  are  but 
a  drop  in  the  bucket.  And  we  find  in  his  book  a 
vast  virgin  ignorance  of  the  life  and  prospects  of  Amer- 
ica; every  view  partial,  parochial,  not  raised  to  the  ho- 
rizon ;  the  moral  feeling  proper,  at  the  largest,  to  a  clique 
of  States;  and  the  whole  scope  and  atmosphere  not 
American,  but  merely  Yankee.  1  will  go  far  beyond 
him  in  reprobating  the  assumption  and  the  incivility  of 
my  countryfolk  to  their  cousins  from  beyond  the  sea;  I 

179 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

grill  in  my  blood  over  the  silly  rudeness  of  our  news- 
paper articles ;  and  I  do  not  know  where  to  look  when 
I  find  myself  in  company  with  an  American  and  see  my 
countrymen  unbending  to  him  as  to  a  performing  dog. 
But  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Grant  White  example  were  better 
than  precept.  Wyoming  is,  after  all,  more  readily  ac- 
cessible to  Mr.  White  than  Boston  to  the  English,  and 
the  New  England  self-sufficiency  no  better  justified  than 
the  Britannic. 

It  is  so,  perhaps,  in  all  countries ;  perhaps  in  all,  men 
are  most  ignorant  of  the  foreigners  at  home.  John  Bull 
is  ignorant  of  the  States ;  he  is  probably  ignorant  of  In- 
dia; but  considering  his  opportunities,  he  is  far  more 
ignorant  of  countries  nearer  his  own  door.  There  is  one 
country,  for  instance  —  its  frontier  not  so  far  from  Lon- 
don, its  people  closely  akin,  its  language  the  same  in  all 
essentials  with  the  English  —  of  which  I  will  go  bail  he 
knows  nothing.  His  ignorance  of  the  sister  kingdom 
cannot  be  described ;  it  can  only  be  illustrated  by  anec- 
dote. I  once  travelled  with  a  man  of  plausible  manners 
and  good  intelligence, —  a  University  man,  as  the  phrase 
goes, —  a  man,  besides,  who  had  taken  his  degree  in  life 
and  knew  a  thing  or  two  about  the  age  we  live  in.  We 
were  deep  in  talk,  whirling  between  Peterborough  and 
London ;  among  other  things,  he  began  to  describe  some 
piece  of  legal  injustice  he  had  recently  encountered,  and 
I  observed  in  my  innocence  that  things  were  not  so  in 
Scotland.  "I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  he,  "this  is  a 
matter  of  law."  He  had  never  heard  of  the  Scots  law; 
nor  did  he  choose  to  be  informed.  The  law  was  the 
same  for  the  whole  country,  he  told  me  roundly ;  every 
child  knew  that.     At  last,  to  settle  matters,  I  explained 

1 80 


THE   FOREIGNER   AT   HOME 

to  him  that  I  was  a  member  of  a  Scottish  legal  body,  and 
had  stood  the  brunt  of  an  examination  in  the  very  law  in 
question.  Thereupon  he  looked  me  for  a  moment  full 
in  the  face  and  dropped  the  conversation.  This  is  a 
monstrous  instance,  if  you  like,  but  it  does  not  stand 
alone  in  the  experience  of  Scots. 

England  and  Scotland  differ,  indeed,  in  law,  in  his- 
tory, in  religion,  in  education,  and  in  the  very  look. of 
nature  and  men's  faces,  not  always  widely,  but  always 
trenchantly.  Many  particulars  that  struck  Mr.  Grant 
White,  a  Yankee,  struck  me,  a  Scot,  no  less  forcibly; 
he  and  I  felt  ourselves  foreigners  on  many  common  pro- 
vocations. A  Scotchman  may  tramp  the  better  part  of 
Europe  and  the  United  States,  and  never  again  receive 
so  vivid  an  impression  of  foreign  travel  and  strange 
lands  and  manners  as  on  his  first  excursion  into  Eng- 
land. The  change  from  a  hilly  to  a  level  country  strikes 
him  with  delighted  wonder.  Along  the  flat  horizon 
there  arise  the  frequent  venerable  towers  of  churches. 
He  sees  at  the  end  of  airy  vistas  the  revolution  of  the 
windmill  sails.  He  may  go  where  he  pleases  in  the 
future ;  he  may  see  Alps,  and  Pyramids,  and  lions ;  but 
it  will  be  hard  to  beat  the  pleasure  of  that  moment. 
There  are,  indeed,  few  merrier  spectacles  than  that  of 
many  windmills  bickering  together  in  a  fresh  breeze 
over  a  woody  country ;  their  halting  alacrity  of  move- 
ment, their  pleasant  business,  making  bread  all  day 
with  uncouth  gesticulations,  their  air,  gigantically  hu- 
man, as  of  a  creature  half  alive,  put  a  spirit  of  romance 
into  the  tamest  landscape.  When  the  Scotch  child  sees 
them  first  he  falls  immediately  in  love ;  and  from  that 
time  forward  windmills  keep  turning  in  his  dreams. 

181 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

And  so,  in  their  degree,  with  every  feature  of  the  life 
and  landscape.  The  warm,  habitable  age  of  towns  and 
hamlets,  the  green,  settled,  ancient  look  of  the  country ; 
the  lush  hedgerows,  stiles  and  privy  pathways  in  the 
fields;  the  sluggish,  brimming  rivers;  chalk  and  smock- 
frocks  ;  chimes  of  bells  and  the  rapid,  pertly-sounding 
English  speech  —  they  are  all  new  to  the  curiosity;  they 
are  all  set  to  English  airs  in  the  child's  story  that  he  tells 
himself  at  night.  The  sharp  edge  of  novelty  wears  off; 
the  feeling  is  scotched,  but  I  doubt  whether  it  is  ever 
killed.  Rather  it  keeps  returning,  ever  the  more  rarely 
and  strangely,  and  even  in  scenes  to  which  you  have 
been  long  accustomed  suddenly  awakes  and  gives  a 
relish  to  enjoyment  or  heightens  the  sense  of  isolation. 
One  thing  especially  continues  unfamiliar  to  the 
Scotchman's  eye  —  the  domestic  architecture,  the  look 
of  streets  and  buildings;  the  quaint,  venerable  age  of 
many,  and  the  thin  walls  and  warm  colouring  of  all.  We 
have,  in  Scotland,  far  fewer  ancient  buildings,  above  all 
in  country  places ;  and  those  that  we  have  are  all  of  hewn 
or  haded  masonry.  Wood  has  been  sparingly  used  in 
their  construction;  the  window-frames  are  sunken  in 
the  wall,  not  flat  to  the  front,  as  in  England ;  the  roofs 
are  steeper-pitched ;  even  a  hill  farm  will  have  a  massy, 
square,  cold  and  permanent  appearance.  English  houses, 
in  comparison,  have  the  look  of  cardboard  toys,  such  as 
a  puff  might  shatter.  And  to  this  the  Scotchman  never 
becomes  used.  His  eye  can  never  rest  consciously  on 
one  of  these  brick  houses  —  rickles  of  brick,  as  he  might 
call  them  —  or  on  one  of  these  flat-chested  streets,  but  he 
is  instantly  reminded  where  he  is,  and  instantly  travels 
back  in  fancy  to  his  home.     "  This  is  no  my  ain  house ; 

182 


THE    FOREIGNER   AT    HOME 

I  ken  by  the  biggin'  o't."  And  yet  perhaps  it  is  his 
own,  bought  with  his  own  money,  the  key  of  it  long 
polished  in  his  pocket;  but  it  has  not  yet,  and  never 
will  be,  thoroughly  adopted  by  his  imagination;  nor 
does  he  cease  to  remember  that,  in  the  whole  length 
and  breadth  of  his  native  country,  there  was  no  building 
even  distantly  resembling  it. 

But  it  is  not  alone  in  scenery  and  architecture  that  we 
count  England  foreign.  The  constitution  of  society,  the 
very  pillars  of  the  empire,  surprise  and  even  pain  us. 
The  dull,  neglected  peasant,  sunk  in  matter,  insolent, 
gross  and  servile,  makes  a  startling  contrast  with  our 
own  long-legged,  long-headed,  thoughtful,  Bible-quot- 
ing ploughman.  A  week  or  two  in  such  a  place  as  Suf- 
folk leaves  the  Scotchman  gasping.  It  seems  incredible 
that  within  the  boundaries  of  his  own  island  a  class 
should  have  been  thus  forgotten.  Even  the  educated 
and  intelligent,  who  hold  our  own  opinions  and  speak 
in  our  own  words,  yet  seem  to  hold  them  with  a  differ- 
ence or  from  another  reason,  and  to  speak  on  all  things 
with  less  interest  and  conviction.  The  first  shock  of 
English  society  is  like  a  cold  plunge.  It  is  possible  that 
the  Scot  comes  looking  for  too  much,  and  to  be  sure  his 
first  experiment  will  be  in  the  wrong  direction.  Yet 
surely  his  complaint  is  grounded ;  surely  the  speech  of 
Englishmen  is  too  often  lacking  in  generous  ardour,  the 
better  part  of  the  man  too  often  withheld  from  the  social 
commerce,  and  the  contact  of  mind  with  mind  evaded 
as  with  terror.  A  Scotch  peasant  will  talk  more  liber- 
ally out  of  his  own  experience.  He  will  not  put  you  by 
with  conversational  counters  and  small  jests;  he  will 
give  you  the  best  of  himself,  like  one  interested  in  life 

183 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

and  man's  chief  end.  A  Scotchman  is  vain,  interested 
in  himself  and  others,  eager  for  sympathy,  setting  forth 
his  thoughts  and  experience  in  the  best  light.  The  ego- 
ism of  the  Englishman  is  self-contained.  He  does  not 
seek  to  proselytise.  He  takes  no  interest  in  Scotland  or 
the  Scotch,  and,  what  is  the  unkindest  cut  of  all,  he  does 
not  care  to  justify  his  indifference.  Give  him  the  wages 
of  going  on  and  being  an  Englishman,  that  is  all  he  asks ; 
and  in  the  meantime,  while  you  continue  to  associate, 
he  would  rather  not  be  reminded  of  your  baser  origin. 
Compared  with  the  grand,  tree-like  self-sufficiency  of 
his  demeanour,  the  vanity  and  curiosity  of  the  Scot  seem 
uneasy,  vulgar  and  immodest.  That  you  should  con- 
tinually try  to  establish  human  and  serious  relations,  that 
you  should  actually  feel  an  interest  in  John  Bull,  and  de- 
sire and  invite  a  return  of  interest  from  him,  may  argue 
something  more  awake  and  lively  in  your  mind,  but  it 
still  puts  you  in  the  attitude  of  a  suitor  and  a  poor  rela- 
tion. Thus  even  the  lowest  class  of  the  educated  Eng- 
lish towers  over  a  Scotchman  by  the  head  and  shoulders. 
Different  indeed  is  the  atmosphere  in  which  Scotch 
and  English  youth  begin  to  look  about  them,  come  to 
themselves  in  life,  and  gather  up  those  first  apprehen- 
sions which  are  the  material  of  future  thought  and,  to  a 
great  extent,  the  rule  of  future  conduct.  I  have  been  to 
school  in  both  countries,  and  I  found,  in  the  boys  of  the 
North,  something  at  once  rougher  and  more  tender,  at 
once  more  reserve  and  more  expansion,  a  greater  habit- 
ual distance  chequered  by  glimpses  of  a  nearer  intimacy, 
and  on  the  whole  wider  extremes  of  temperament  and 
sensibility.  The  boy  of  the  South  seems  more  whole- 
some, but  less  thoughtful ;  he  gives  himself  to  games  as 

.84 


THE    FOREIGNER   AT    HOME 

to  a  business,  striving  to  excel,  but  is  not  readily  trans- 
ported by  imagination ;  the  type  remains  with  me  as 
cleaner  in  mind  and  body,  more  active,  fonder  of  eating, 
endowed  with  a  lesser  and  a  less  romantic  sense  of  life 
and  of  the  future,  and  more  immersed  in  present  circum- 
stances. And  certainly,  for  one  thing,  English  boys  are 
younger  for  their  age.  Sabbath  observance  makes  a 
series  of  grim,  and  perhaps  serviceable,  pauses  in  the 
tenor  of  Scotch  boyhood  —  days  of  great  stillness  and 
solitude  for  the  rebellious  mind,  when  in  the  dearth  of 
books  and  play,  and  in  the  intervals  of  studying  the 
Shorter  Catechism,  the  intellect  and  senses  prey  upon 
and  test  each  other.  The  typical  English  Sunday,  with 
the  huge  midday  dinner  and  the  plethoric  afternoon, 
leads  perhaps  to  different  results.  About  the  very  cradle 
of  the  Scot  there  goes  a  hum  of  metaphysical  divinity ; 
and  the  whole  of  two  divergent  systems  is  summed  up, 
not  merely  speciously,  in  the  two  first  questions  of  the 
rival  catechisms,  the  English  tritely  inquiring,  "What 
is  your  name  ?  "  the  Scottish  striking  at  the  very  roots  of 
life  with,  ' '  What  is  the  chief  end  of  man  ?  "  and  answer- 
ing nobly,  if  obscurely,  "To  glorify  God  and  to  enjoy 
Him  for  ever."  I  do  not  wish  to  make  an  idol  of  the 
Shorter  Catechism ;  but  the  fact  of  such  a  question  being 
asked  opens  to  us  Scotch  a  great  field  of  speculation ; 
and  the  fact  that  it  is  asked  of  all  of  us,  from  the  peer  to 
the  ploughboy,  binds  us  more  nearly  together.  No  Eng- 
lishman of  Byron's  age,  character  and  history,  would 
have  had  patience  for  long  theological  discussions  on 
the  way  to  fight  for  Greece;  but  the  daft  Gordon  blood 
and  the  Aberdonian  schooldays  kept  their  influence  to 
the  end.     We  have  spoken  of  the  material  conditions; 

185 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

nor  need  much  more  be  said  of  these:  of  the  land  lying 
everywhere  more  exposed,  of  the  wind  always  louder 
and  bleaker,  of  the  black,  roaring  winters,  of  the  gloom 
of  high-lying,  old  stone  cities,  imminent  on  the  windy 
seaboard;  compared  with  the  level  streets,  the  warm 
colouring  of  the  brick,  the  domestic  quaintness  of  the 
architecture,  among  which  English  children  begin  to 
grow  up  and  come  to  themselves  in  life.  As  the  stage 
of  the  University  approaches,  the  contrast  becomes  more 
express.  The  English  lad  goes  to  Oxford  or  Cambridge ; 
there,  in  an  ideal  world  of  gardens,  to  lead  a  semi-scenic 
life,  costumed,  disciplined  and  drilled  by  proctors.  Nor 
is  this  to  be  regarded  merely  as  a  stage  of  education ;  it 
is  a  piece  of  privilege  besides,  and  a  step  that  separates 
him  further  from  the  bulk  of  his  compatriots.  At  an 
earlier  age  the  Scottish  lad  begins  his  greatly  different 
experience  of  crowded  class-rooms,  of  a  gaunt  quad- 
rangle, of  a  bell  hourly  booming  over  the  traffic  of  the 
city  to  recall  him  from  the  public-house  where  he  has 
been  lunching,  or  the  streets  where  he  has  been  wander- 
ing fancy-free.  His  college  life  has  little  of  restraint,  and 
nothing  of  necessary  gentility.  He  will  find  no  quiet 
clique  of  the  exclusive,  studious  and  cultured;  no  rotten 
borough  of  the  arts.  All  classes  rub  shoulders  on  the 
greasy  benches.  The  raffish  young  gentleman  in  gloves 
must  measure  his  scholarship  with  the  plain,  clownish 
laddie  from  the  parish  school.  They  separate,  at  the 
session's  end,  one  to  smoke  cigars  about  a  watering- 
place,  the  other  to  resume  the  labours  of  the  field  beside 
his  peasant  family.  The  first  muster  of  a  college  class 
in  Scotland  is  a  scene  of  curious  and  painful  interest;  so 
many  lads,  fresh  from  the  heather,  hang  round  the  stove 

1 86 


THE   FOREIGNER  AT   HOME 

in  cloddish  embarrassment,  ruffled  by  the  presence  of 
their  smarter  comrades,  and  afraid  of  the  sound  of  their 
own  rustic  voices.  It  was  in  these  early  days,  I  think, 
that  Professor  Blackie  won  the  affection  of  his  pupils, 
putting  these  uncouth,  umbrageous  students  at  their 
ease  with  ready  human  geniality.  Thus,  at  least,  we 
have  a  healthy  democratic  atmosphere  to  breathe  in 
while  at  work ;  even  when  there  is  no  cordiality  there 
is  always  a  juxtaposition  of  the  different  classes,  and  in 
the  competition  of  study  the  intellectual  power  of  each 
is  plainly  demonstrated  to  the  other.  Our  tasks  ended, 
we  of  the  North  go  forth  as  freemen  into  the  humming, 
lamplit  city.  At  five  o'clock  you  may  see  the  last  of  us 
hiving  from  the  college  gates,  in  the  glare  of  the  shop 
windows,  under  the  green  glimmer  of  the  winter  sun- 
set. The  frost  tingles  in  our  blood ;  no  proctor  lies  in 
wait  to  intercept  us ;  till  the  bell  sounds  again,  we  are 
the  masters  of  the  world;  and  some  portion  of  our  lives 
is  always  Saturday,  la  tr£ve  de  Dieu. 

Nor  must  we  omit  the  sense  of  the  nature  of  his 
country  and  his  country's  history  gradually  growing  in 
the  child's  mind  from  story  and  from  observation.  A 
Scottish  child  hears  much  of  shipwreck,  outlying  iron 
skerries,  pitiless  breakers,  and  great  sea-lights;  much 
of  heathery  mountains,  wild  clans,  and  hunted  Cove- 
nanters. Breaths  come  to  him  in  song  of  the  distant 
Cheviots  and  the  ring  of  foraying  hoofs.  He  glories  in 
his  hard-fisted  forefathers,  of  the  iron  girdle  and  the 
handful  of  oatmeal,  who  rode  so  swiftly  and  lived  so 
sparely  on  their  raids.  Poverty,  ill-luck,  enterprise, 
and  constant  resolution  are  the  fibres  of  the  legend  of 
his  country's  history.     The  heroes  and  kings  of  Scot- 

187 


MEMORIES   AND    PORTRAITS 

iand  have  been  tragically  fated ;  the  most  marking  inci- 
dents in  Scottish  history — Flodden,  Darien,  or  the 
Forty-five — were  still  either  failures  or  defeats;  and  the 
fall  of  Wallace  and  the  repeated  reverses  of  the  Bruce 
combine  with  the  very  smallness  of  the  country  to  teach 
rather  a  moral  than  a  material  criterion  for  life.  Britain 
is  altogether  small,  the  mere  taproot  of  her  extended 
empire;  Scotland,  again,  which  alone  the  Scottish  boy 
adopts  in  his  imagination,  is  but  a  little  part  of  that, 
and  avowedly  cold,  sterile  and  unpopulous.  It  is  not 
so  for  nothing.  I  once  seemed  to  have  perceived  in  an 
American  boy  a  greater  readiness  of  sympathy  for  lands 
that  are  great,  and  rich,  and  growing,  like  his  own.  It 
proved  to  be  quite  otherwise:  a  mere  dumb  piece  of 
boyish  romance,  that  I  had  lacked  penetration  to  divine. 
But  the  error  serves  the  purpose  of  my  argument;  foi 
I  am  sure,  at  least,  that  the  heart  of  young  Scotland  will 
be  always  touched  more  nearly  by  paucity  of  number 
and  Spartan  poverty  of  life. 

So  we  may  argue,  and  yet  the  difference  is  not  ex- 
plained. That  Shorter  Catechism  which  I  took  as  being 
so  typical  of  Scotland,  was  yet  composed  in  the  city  of 
Westminster.  The  division  of  races  is  more  sharply 
marked  within  the  borders  of  Scotland  itself  than  be- 
tween the  countries.  Galloway  and  Buchan,  Lothian 
and  Lochaber,  are  like  foreign  parts;  yet  you  may 
choose  a  man  from  any  of  them,  and,  ten  to  one,  he 
shall  prove  to  have  the  headmark  of  a  Scot.  A  century 
and  a  half  ago  the  Highlander  wore  a  different  costume, 
spoke  a  different  language,  worshipped  in  another 
church,  held  different  morals,  and  obeyed  a  different 
social  constitution  from  his  fellow-countrymen   either 

1 88 


THE   FOREIGNER  AT   HOME 

©f  the  south  or  north.  Even  the  English,  it  is  recorded, 
did  not  loathe  the  Highlander  and  the  Highland  cos- 
tume as  they  were  loathed  by  the  remainder  of  the 
Scotch.  Yet  the  Highlander  felt  himself  a  Scot.  He 
would  willingly  raid  into  the  Scotch  lowlands ;  but  his 
courage  failed  him  at  the  border,  and  he  regarded 
England  as  a  perilous,  unhomely  land.  When  the 
Black  Watch,  after  years  of  foreign  service,  returned  to 
Scotland,  veterans  leaped  out  and  kissed  the  earth  at 
Port  Patrick.  They  had  been  in  Ireland,  stationed 
among  men  of  their  own  race  and  language,  where 
they  were  well  liked  and  treated  with  affection;  but  it 
was  the  soil  of  Galloway  that  they  kissed  at  the  ex- 
treme end  of  the  hostile  lowlands,  among  a  people  who 
did  not  understand  their  speech,  and  who  had  hated, 
harried,  and  hanged  them  since  the  dawn  of  history. 
Last,  and  perhaps  most  curious,  the  sons  of  chieftains 
were  often  educated  on  the  continent  of  Europe.  They 
went  abroad  speaking  Gaelic ;  they  returned  speaking, 
not  English,  out  the  broad  dialect  of  Scotland.  Now, 
what  idea  had  they  in  their  minds  when  they  thus,  in 
thought,  identified  themselves  with  their  ancestral  ene- 
mies ?  What  was  the  sense  in  which  they  were  Scotch 
and  not  English,  or  Scotch  and  not  Irish  ?  Can  a  bare 
name  be  thus  influential  on  the  minds  and  affections  of 
men,  and  a  political  aggregation  blind  them  to  the  na- 
ture of  facts  ?  The  story  of  the  Austrian  Empire  would 
seem  to  answer,  No;  the  far  more  galling  business  of 
Ireland  clenches  the  negative  from  nearer  home.  Is  it  com- 
mon education,  common  morals,  a  common  language  or 
a  common  faith,  that  join  men  into  nations  ?  There  were 
practically  none  of  these  in  the  case  we  are  considering. 

180 


MEMORIES   AND    PORTRAITS 

The  fact  remains :  in  spite  of  the  difference  of  blood 
and  language,  the  Lowlander  feels  himself  the  senti- 
mental countryman  of  the  Highlander.  When  they 
meet  abroad,  they  fall  upon  each  other's  necks  in  spirit ; 
even  at  home  there  is  a  kind  of  clannish  intimacy  in 
their  talk.  But  from  his  compatriot  in  the  south  the 
Lowlander  stands  consciously  apart.  He  has  had  a  dif- 
ferent training ;  he  obeys  different  laws ;  he  makes  his 
will  in  other  terms,  is  otherwise  divorced  and  married ; 
his  eyes  are  not  at  home  in  an  English  landscape  or  with 
English  houses;  his  ear  continues  to  remark  the  Eng- 
lish speech;  and  even  though  his  tongue  acquire  the 
Southern  knack,  he  will  still  have  a  strong  Scotch  accent 
of  the  mind. 


190 


II.    SOME  COLLEGE  MEMORIES1 

IAM  asked  to  write  something  (it  is  not  specifically 
stated  what)  to  the  profit  and  glory  of  my  Alma 
Mater;  and  the  fact  is  I  seem  to  be  in  very  nearly  the 
same  case  with  those  who  addressed  me,  for  while  I  am 
willing  enough  to  write  something,  I  know  not  what  to 
write.  Only  one  point  I  see,  that  if  I  am  to  write  at  all, 
it  should  be  of  the  University  itself  and  my  own  days 
under  its  shadow;  of  the  things  that  are  still  the  same 
and  of  those  that  are  already  changed :  such  talk,  in 
short,  as  would  pass  naturally  between  a  student  of  to- 
day and  one  of  yesterday,  supposing  them  to  meet  and 
grow  confidential. 

The  generations  pass  away  swiftly  enough  on  the  high 
seas  of  life;  more  swiftly  still  in  the  little  bubbling  back- 
water of  the  quadrangle ;  so  that  we  see  there,  on  a  scale 
startlingly  diminished,  the  flight  of  time  and  the  succes- 
sion of  men.  I  looked  for  my  name  the  other  day  in  last 
year's  case  book  of  the  Speculative.  Naturally  enough 
I  looked  for  it  near  the  end ;  it  was  not  there,  nor  yet  in 
the  next  column,  so  that  I  began  to  think  it  had  been 
dropped  at  press ;  and  when  at  last  I  found  it,  mounted 
on  the  shoulders  of  so  many  successors,  and  looking  in 

1  Written  for  the  "  Book"  of  the  Edinburgh  University  Union  Fancy 
Fair. 

I9« 


MEMORIES   AND    PORTRAITS 

that  posture  like  the  name  of  a  man  of  ninety,  I  was 
conscious  of  some  of  the  dignity  of  years.  This  kind  of 
dignity  of  temporal  precession  is  likely,  with  prolonged 
life,  to  become  more  familiar,  possibly  less  welcome; 
but  I  felt  it  strongly  then,  it  is  strongly  on  me  now,  and 
I  am  the  more  emboldened  to  speak  with  my  successors 
in  the  tone  of  a  parent  and  a  praiser  of  things  past. 

For,  indeed,  that  which  they  attend  is  but  a  fallen 
University ;  it  has  doubtless  some  remains  of  good,  for 
human  institutions  decline  by  gradual  stages;  but  de- 
cline, in  spite  of  all  seeming  embellishments,  it  does ; 
and  what  is  perhaps  more  singular,  began  to  do  so 
when  I  ceased  to  be  a  student.  Thus,  by  an  odd  chance, 
I  had  the  very  last  of  the  very  best  of  Alma  Mater;  the 
same  thing,  I  hear  (which  makes  it  the  more  strange), 
had  previously  happened  to  my  father;  and  if  they  are 
good  and  do  not  die,  something  not  at  all  unsimilar  will 
be  found  in  time  to  have  befallen  my  successors  of  to- 
day. Of  the  specific  points  of  change,  of  advantage  in 
the  past,  of  shortcoming  in  the  present,  I  must  own 
that,  on  a  near  examination,  they  look  wondrous  cloudy. 
The  chief  and  far  the  most  lamentable  change  is  the  ab- 
sence of  a  certain  lean,  ugly,  idle,  unpopular  student, 
whose  presence  was  for  me  the  gist  and  heart  of  the 
whole  matter;  whose  changing  humours,  fine  occa- 
sional purposes  of  good,  flinching  acceptance  of  evil, 
shiverings  on  wet,  east-windy,  morning  journeys  up  to 
class,  infinite  yawnings  during  lecture  and  unquencha- 
ble gusto  in  the  delights  of  truantry,  made  up  the  sun- 
shine and  shadow  of  my  college  life.  You  cannot  fancy 
what  you  missed  in  missing  him ;  his  virtues,  I  make 
sure,  are  inconceivable  to  his  successors,  just  as  they 

192 


SOME   COLLEGE   MEMORIES 

were  apparently  concealed  from  his  contemporaries,  for 
I  was  practically  alone  in  the  pleasure  I  had  in  his  so- 
ciety. Poor  soul,  I  remember  how  much  he  was  cast 
down  at  times,  and  how  life  (which  had  not  yet  begun) 
seemed  to  be  already  at  an  end,  and  hope  quite  dead, 
and  misfortune  and  dishonour,  like  physical  presences, 
dogging  him  as  he  went.  And  it  may  be  worth  while 
to  add  that  these  clouds  rolled  away  in  their  season, 
and  that  all  clouds  roll  away  at  last,  and  the  troubles 
of  youth  in  particular  are  things  but  of  a  moment.  So 
this  student,  whom  I  have  in  my  eye,  took  his  full  share 
of  these  concerns,  and  that  very  largely  by  his  own 
fault ;  but  he  still  clung  to  his  fortune,  and  in  the  midst 
of  much  misconduct,  kept  on  in  his  own  way  learning 
how  to  work ;  and  at  last,  to  his  wonder,  escaped  out 
of  the  stage  of  studentship  not  openly  shamed ;  leaving 
behind  him  the  University  of  Edinburgh  shorn  of  a  good 
deal  of  its  interest  for  myself. 

But  while  he  is  (in  more  senses  than  one)  the  first 
person,  he  is  by  no  means  the  only  one  whom  I  regret, 
or  whom  the  students  of  to-day,  if  they  knew  what  they 
had  lost,  would  regret  also.  They  have  still  Tait,  to  be 
sure  —  long  may  they  have  him!  —  and  they  have  still 
Tait's  class-room,  cupola  and  all;  but  think  of  what  a 
different  place  it  was  when  this  youth  of  mine  (at  least 
on  roll  days)  would  be  present  on  the  benches,  and,  at 
the  near  end  of  the  platform,  Lindsay  senior1  was  airing 
his  robust  old  age.  It  is  possible  my  successors  may 
have  never  even  heard  of  Old  Lindsay;  but  when  he 
went,  a  link  snapped  with  the  last  century.  He  had 
something  of  a  rustic  air,  sturdy  and  fresh  and  plain;  he 
1  Professor  Tait's  laboratory  assistant. 
*93 


MEMORIES   AND    PORTRAITS 

spoke  with  a  ripe  east-country  accent,  which  I  used  to 
admire ;  his  reminiscences  were  all  of  journeys  on  foot 
or  highways  busy  with  post-chaises  —  a  Scotland  before 
steam ;  he  had  seen  the  coal  fire  on  the  Isle  of  May,  and 
he  regaled  me  with  tales  of  my  own  grandfather.  Thus 
he  was  for  me  a  mirror  of  things  perished ;  it  was  only 
in  his  memory  that  I  could  see  the  huge  shock  of  flames 
of  the  May  beacon  stream  to  leeward,  and  the  watchers, 
as  they  fed  the  fire,  lay  hold  unscorched  of  the  windward 
bars  of  the  furnace ;  it  was  only  thus  that  I  could  see  my 
grandfather  driving  swiftly  in  a  gig  along  the  seaboard 
road  from  Pittenweem  to  Crail,  and  for  all  his  business 
hurry,  drawing  up  to  speak  good-humouredly  with 
those  he  met.  And  now,  in  his  turn,  Lindsay  is  gone 
also ;  inhabits  only  the  memories  of  other  men,  till  these 
shall  follow  him ;  and  figures  in  my  reminiscences  as 
my  grandfather  figured  in  his. 

To-day,  again,  they  have  Professor  Butcher,  and  I 
hear  he  has  a  prodigious  deal  of  Greek ;  and  they  have 
Professor  Chrystal,  who  is  a  man  filled  with  the  mathema- 
tics. And  doubtless  these  are  set-offs.  But  they  can- 
not change  the  fact  that  Professor  Blackie  has  retired, 
and  that  Professor  Kelland  is  dead.  No  man's  educa- 
tion is  complete  or  truly  liberal  who  knew  not  Kelland. 
There  were  unutterable  lessons  in  the  mere  sight  of  that 
frail  old  clerical  gentleman,  lively  as  a  boy,  kind  like  a 
fairy  godfather,  and  keeping  perfect  order  in  his  class  by 
the  spell  of  that  very  kindness.  I  have  heard  him  drift 
into  reminiscences  in  class  time,  though  not  for  long, 
and  give  us  glimpses  of  old-world  life  in  out-of-the-way 
English  parishes  when  he  was  young;  thus  playing  the 
same  part  as  Lindsay  —  the  part  of  the  surviving  mem- 

194 


SOME   COLLEGE   MEMORIES 

ory,  signalling  out  of  the  dark  backward  and  abysm  of 
time  the  images  of  perished  things.  But  it  was  a  part 
that  scarce  became  him ;  he  somehow  lacked  the  means : 
for  all  his  silver  hair  and  worn  face,  he  was  not  truly 
old ;  and  he  had  too  much  of  the  unrest  and  petulant 
fire  of  youth,  and  too  much  invincible  innocence  of 
mind,  to  play  the  veteran  well.  The  time  to  measure 
him  best,  to  taste  (in  the  old  phrase)  his  gracious  nature, 
was  when  he  received  his  class  at  home.  What  a  pretty 
simplicity  would  he  then  show,  trying  to  amuse  us  like 
children  with  toys ;  and  what  an  engaging  nervousness 
of  manner,  as  fearing  that  his  efforts  might  not  succeed ! 
Truly  he  made  us  all  feel  like  children,  and  like  children 
embarrassed,  but  at  the  same  time  filled  with  sympathy 
for  the  conscientious,  troubled  elder-boy  who  was  work- 
ing so  hard  to  entertain  us.  A  theorist  has  held  the  view 
that  there  is  no  feature  in  man  so  tell-tale  as  his  spec- 
tacles ;  that  the  mouth  may  be  compressed  and  the  brow 
smoothed  artificially,  but  the  sheen  of  the  barnacles  is 
diagnostic.  And  truly  it  must  have  been  thus  with  Kel- 
land ;  for  as  I  still  fancy  I  behold  him  frisking  actively 
about  the  platform,  pointer  in  hand,  that  which  I  seem 
to  see  most  clearly  is  the  way  his  glasses  glittered  with 
affection.  I  never  knew  but  one  other  man  who  had 
(if  you  will  permit  the  phrase)  so  kind  a  spectacle;  and 
that  was  Dr.  Appleton.  But  the  light  in  his  case  was 
tempered  and  passive;  in  Kelland's  it  danced,  and 
changed,  and  flashed  vivaciously  among  the  students, 
like  a  perpetual  challenge  to  goodwill. 

I  cannot  say  so  much  about  Professor  Blackie,  for  a 
good  reason.  Kelland's  class  I  attended,  once  even 
gained  there  a  certificate  of  merit,  the  only  distinction 

195 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

of  my  University  career.  But  although  I  am  the  holder 
of  a  certificate  of  attendance  in  the  professor's  own  hand, 
I  cannot  remember  to  have  been  present  in  the  Greek 
class  above  a  dozen  times.  Professor  Blackie  was  even 
kind  enough  to  remark  (more  than  once)  while  in  the 
very  act  of  writing  the  document  above  referred  to,  that 
he  did  not  know  my  face.  Indeed,  I  denied  myself 
many  opportunities ;  acting  upon  an  extensive  and  highly 
rational  system  of  truantry,  which  cost  me  a  great  deal 
of  trouble  to  put  in  exercise  —  perhaps  as  much  as  would 
have  taught  me  Greek  —  and  sent  me  forth  into  the 
world  and  the  profession  of  letters  with  the  merest 
shadow  of  an  education.  But  they  say  it  is  always  a 
good  thing  to  have  taken  pains,  and  that  success  is  its 
own  reward,  whatever  be  its  nature ;  so  that,  perhaps, 
even  upon  this  1  should  plume  myself,  that  no  one  ever 
played  the  truant  with  more  deliberate  care,  and  none 
ever  had  more  certificates  for  less  education.  One  con- 
sequence, however,  of  my  system  is  that  I  have  much 
less  to  say  of  Professor  Blackie  than  I  had  of  Professor 
Kelland;  and  as  he  is  still  alive,  and  will  long,  I  hope, 
continue  to  be  so,  it  will  not  surprise  you  very  much 
that  I  have  no  intention  of  saying  it. 

Meanwhile,  how  many  others  have  gone — Jenkin, 
Hodgson,  and  I  know  not  who  besides;  and  of  that  tide 
of  students  that  used  to  throng  the  arch  and  blacken  the 
quadrangle,  how  many  are  scattered  into  the  remotest 
parts  of  the  earth,  and  how  many  more  have  lain  down 
beside  their  fathers  in  their  "  resting-graves ! "  And 
again,  how  many  of  these  last  have  not  found  their  way 
there,  all  too  early,  through  the  stress  of  education!  That 
was  one  thing,  at  least,  from  which  my  truantry  protected 


SOME  COLLEGE   MEMORIES 

me.  1  am  sorry  indeed  that  I  have  no  Greek,  but  I  should 
be  sorrier  still  if  I  were  dead ;  nor  do  I  know  the  name 
of  that  branch  of  knowledge  which  is  worth  acquiring 
at  the  price  of  a  brain  fever.  There  are  many  sordid 
tragedies  in  the  life  of  the  student,  above  all  if  he  be 
poor,  or  drunken,  or  both ;  but  nothing  more  moves  a 
wise  man's  pity  than  the  case  of  the  lad  who  is  in  too 
much  hurry  to  be  learned.  And  so,  for  the  sake  of  a 
moral  at  the  end,  I  will  call  up  one  more  figure,  and 
have  done.  A  student,  ambitious  of  success  by  that 
hot,  intemperate  manner  of  study  that  now  grows  so 
common,  read  night  and  day  for  an  examination.  As  he 
went  on,  the  task  became  more  easy  to  him,  sleep  was 
more  easily  banished,  his  brain  grew  hot  and  clear  and 
more  capacious,  the  necessary  knowledge  daily  fuller 
and  more  orderly.  It  came  to  the  eve  of  the  trial  and 
he  watched  all  night  in  his  high  chamber,  reviewing 
what  he  knew,  and  already  secure  of  success.  His  win- 
dow looked  eastward,  and  being  (as  I  said)  high  up,  and 
the  house  itself  standing  on  a  hill,  commanded  a  view 
over  dwindling  suburbs  to  a  country  horizon.  At  last 
my  student  drew  up  his  blind,  and  still  in  quite  a  jocund 
humour,  looked  abroad.  Day  was  breaking,  the  east 
was  tinging  with  strange  fires,  the  clouds  breaking  up 
for  the  coming  of  the  sun ;  and  at  the  sight,  nameless 
terror  seized  upon  his  mind.  He  was  sane,  his  senses 
were  undisturbed ;  he  saw  clearly,  and  knew  what  he 
was  seeing,  and  knew  that  it  was  normal ;  but  he  could 
neither  bear  to  see  it  nor  find  the  strength  to  look  away, 
and  fled  in  panic  from  his  chamber  into  the  enclosure  of 
the  street.  In  the  cool  air  and  silence,  and  among  the 
sleeping  houses,  his  strength  was  renewed.     Nothing 

•97 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

troubled  him  but  the  memory  of  what  had  passed,  and 
an  abject  fear  of  its  return. 

4 '  Gallo  canente,  spes  redit, 
Aegris  salus  refunditur, 
Lapsis  fides  revertitur," 

as  they  sang  of  old  in  Portugal  in  the  Morning  Office. 
But  to  him  that  good  hour  of  cockcrow,  and  the  changes 
of  the  dawn,  had  brought  panic,  and  lasting  doubt,  and 
such  terror  as  he  still  shook  to  think  of.  He  dared  not 
return  to  his  lodging;  he  could  not  eat;  he  sat  down, 
he  rose  up,  he  wandered ;  the  city  woke  about  him  with 
its  cheerful  bustle,  the  sun  climbed  overhead ;  and  still 
he  grew  but  the  more  absorbed  in  the  distress  of  his 
recollection  and  the  fear  of  his  past  fear.  At  the  ap- 
pointed hour,  he  came  to  the  door  of  the  place  of  ex- 
amination ;  but  when  he  was  asked,  he  had  forgotten  his 
name.  Seeing  him  so  disordered,  they  had  not  the  heart 
to  send  him  away,  but  gave  him  a  paper  and  admitted 
him,  still  nameless,  to  the  Hall.  Vain  kindness,  vain 
efforts.  He  could  only  sit  in  a  still  growing  horror,  writ- 
ing nothing,  ignorant  of  all,  his  mind  filled  with  a  single 
memory  of  the  breaking  day  and  his  own  intolerable  fear. 
And  that  same  night  he  was  tossing  in  a  brain  fever. 

People  are  afraid  of  war  and  wounds  and  dentists,  all 
with  excellent  reason ;  but  these  are  not  to  be  compared 
with  such  chaotic  terrors  of  the  mind  as  fell  on  this  young 
man,  and  made  him  cover  his  eyes  from  the  innocent 
morning.  We  all  have  by  our  bedsides  the  box  of  the 
Merchant  Abudah,  thank  God,  securely  enough  shut; 
but  when  a  young  man  sacrifices  sleep  to  labour,  let  him 
have  a  care,  for  he  is  playing  with  the  lock. 


HI.   OLD  MORTALITY 


THERE  is  a  certain  graveyard,  looked  upon  on  the 
one  side  by  a  prison,  on  the  other  by  the  windows 
of  a  quiet  hotel;  below,  under  a  steep  cliff,  it  beholds 
the  traffic  of  many  lines  of  rail,  and  the  scream  of  the 
engine  and  the  shock  of  meeting  buffers  mount  to  it  all 
day  long.  The  aisles  are  lined  with  the  inclosed  sepul- 
chres of  families,  door  beyond  door,  like  houses  in  a 
street;  and  in  the  morning  the  shadow  of  the  prison 
turrets,  and  of  many  tall  memorials,  fall  upon  the  graves. 
There,  in  the  hot  fits  of  youth,  I  came  to  be  unhappy. 
Pleasant  incidents  are  woven  with  my  memory  of  the 
place.  I  here  made  friends  with  a  certain  plain  old  gen- 
tleman, a  visitor  on  sunny  mornings,  gravely  cheerful, 
who,  with  one  eye  upon  the  place  that  awaited  him, 
chirped  about  his  youth  like  winter  sparrows ;  a  beauti- 
ful housemaid  of  the  hotel  once,  for  some  days  together, 
dumbly  flirted  with  me  from  a  window  and  kept  my 
wild  heart  flying;  and  once— she  possibly  remembers 
—the  wise  Eugenia  followed  me  to  that  austere  inclo- 
sure.  Her  hair  came  down,  and  in  the  shelter  of  the 
tomb  my  trembling  fingers  helped  her  to  repair  the 
braid.  But  for  the  most  part  I  went  there  solitary  and, 
with  irrevocable  emotion,  pored  on  the  names  of  the 

199 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

forgotten.  Name  after  name,  and  to  each  the  conven- 
tional attributions  and  the  idle  dates :  a  regiment  of  the 
unknown  that  had  been  the  joy  of  mothers,  and  had 
thrilled  with  the  illusions  of  youth,  and  at  last,  in  the 
dim  sick-room,  wrestled  with  the  pangs  of  old  mortal- 
ity. In  that  whole  crew  of  the  silenced  there  was  but 
one  of  whom  my  fancy  had  received  a  picture ;  and  he, 
with  his  comely,  florid  countenance,  bewigged  and 
habited  in  scarlet,  and  in  his  day  combining  fame  and 
popularity,  stood  forth,  like  a  taunt,  among  that  com- 
pany of  phantom  appellations.  It  was  then  possible  to 
leave  behind  us  something  more  explicit  than  these 
severe,  monotonous  and  lying  epitaphs ;  and  the  thing 
left,  the  memory  of  a  painted  picture  and  what  we  call 
the  immortality  of  a  name,  was  hardly  more  desirable 
than  mere  oblivion.  Even  David  Hume,  as  he  lay  com- 
posed beneath  that  "circular  idea,"  was  fainter  than  a 
dream;  and  when  the  housemaid,  broom  in  hand, 
smiled  and  beckoned  from  the  open  window,  the  fame 
of  that  bewigged  philosopher  melted  like  a  raindrop  in 
the  sea. 

And  yet  in  soberness  I  cared  as  little  for  the  house- 
maid as  for  David  Hume.  The  interests  of  youth  are 
rarely  frank ;  his  passions,  like  Noah's  dove,  come  home 
to  roost.  The  fire,  sensibility,  and  volume  of  his  own 
nature,  that  is  all  that  he  has  learned  to  recognise.  The 
tumultuary  and  gray  tide  of  life,  the  empire  of  routine, 
the  unrejoicing  faces  of  his  elders,  fill  him  with  con- 
temptuous surprise ;  there  also  he  seems  to  walk  among 
the  tombs  of  spirits;  and  it  is  only  in  the  course  of 
years,  and  after  much  rubbing  with  his  fellow-men,  that 
he  begins  by  glimpses  to  see  himself  from  without  and  his 

200 


OLD   MORTALITY 

fellows  from  within :  to  know  his  own  for  one  among 
the  thousand  undenoted  countenances  of  the  city  street, 
and  to  divine  in  others  the  throb  of  human  agony  and 
hope.  In  the  meantime  he  will  avoid  the  hospital  doors, 
the  pale  faces,  the  cripple,  the  sweet  whiff  of  chloro- 
form —  for  there,  on  the  most  thoughtless,  the  pains  of 
others  are  burned  home ;  but  he  will  continue  to  walk, 
in  a  divine  self-pity,  the  aisles  of  the  forgotten  grave- 
yard. The  length  of  man's  life,  which  is  endless  to  the 
brave  and  busy,  is  scorned  by  his  ambitious  thought. 
He  cannot  bear  to  have  come  for  so  little,  and  to  go 
again  so  wholly.  He  cannot  bear,  above  all,  in  that 
brief  scene,  to  be  still  idle,  and  by  way  of  cure,  neglects 
the  little  that  he  has  to  do.  The  parable  of  the  talent  is 
the  brief  epitome  of  youth.  To  believe  in  immortality 
is  one  thing,  but  it  is  first  needful  to  believe  in  life. 
Denunciatory  preachers  seem  not  to  suspect  that  they 
may  be  taken  gravely  and  in  evil  part ;  that  young  men 
may  come  to  think  of  time  as  of  a  moment,  and  with 
the  pride  of  Satan  wave  back  the  inadequate  gift.  Yet 
here  is  a  true  peril ;  this  it  is  that  sets  them  to  pace  the 
graveyard  alleys  and  to  read,  with  strange  extremes  of 
pity  and  derision,  the  memorials  of  the  dead. 

Books  were  the  proper  remedy :  books  of  vivid  hu- 
man import,  forcing  upon  their  minds  the  issues,  pleas- 
ures, busyness,  importance  and  immediacy  of  that  life 
in  which  they  stand;  books  of  smiling  or  heroic  temper, 
to  excite  or  to  console ;  books  of  a  large  design,  shad- 
owing the  complexity  of  that  game  of  consequences  to 
which  we  all  sit  down,  the  hanger-back  not  least.  But 
the  average  sermon  flees  the  point,  disporting  itself  in 
that  eternity  of  which  we  know,  and  need  to  know,  so 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

little;  avoiding  the  bright,  crowded,  and  momentous 
fields  of  life  where  destiny  awaits  us.  Upon  the  aver- 
age book  a  writer  may  be  silent;  he  may  set  it  down 
to  his  ill-hap  that  when  his  own  youth  was  in  the  acrid 
fermentation,  he  should  have  fallen  and  fed  upon  the 
cheerless  fields  of  Obermann.  Yet  to  Mr.  Arnold,  who 
led  him  to  these  pastures,  he  still  bears  a  grudge.  The 
day  is  perhaps  not  far  off  when  people  will  begin  to 
count  Moll  Flanders,  ay,  or  The  Country  Wife,  more 
wholesome  and  more  pious  diet  than  these  guide-books 
to  consistent  egoism. 

But  the  most  inhuman  of  boys  soon  wearies  of  the 
inhumanity  of  Obermann.  And  even  while  I  still  con- 
tinued to  be  a  haunter  of  the  graveyard,  I  began  insen- 
sibly to  turn  my  attention  to  the  grave-diggers,  and  was 
weaned  out  of  myself  to  observe  the  conduct  of  visitors. 
This  was  dayspring,  indeed,  to  a  lad  in  such  great  dark- 
ness. Not  that  I  began  to  see  men,  or  to  try  to  see 
them,  from  within,  nor  to  learn  charity  and  modesty 
and  justice  from  the  sight ;  but  still  stared  at  them  ex- 
ternally from  the  prison  windows  of  my  affectation. 
Once  I  remember  to  have  observed  two  working-wo- 
men with  a  baby  halting  by  a  grave  ;  there  was  some- 
thing monumental  in  the  grouping,  one  upright  carry- 
ing the  child,  the  other  with  bowed  face  crouching  by 
her  side.  A  wreath  of  immortelles  under  a  glass  dome  had 
thus  attracted  them ;  and,  drawing  near,  I  overheard  their 
judgment  on  that  wonder.  "  Eh !  what  extravagance!  " 
To  a  youth  afflicted  with  the  callosity  of  sentiment,  this 
quaint  and  pregnant  saying  appeared  merely  base. 

My  acquaintance  with  grave-diggers,  considering  its 
length,  was  unremarkable.    One,  indeed,  whom  I  found 

202 


OLD   MORTALITY 

plying  his  spade  in  the  red  evening,  high  above  Allan 
Water  and  in  the  shadow  of  Dunblane  Cathedral,  told 
me  of  his  acquaintance  with  the  birds  that  still  attended 
on  his  labours;  how  some  would  even  perch  about  him, 
waiting  for  their  prey ;  and  in  a  true  Sexton's  Calendar, 
how  the  species  varied  with  the  season  of  the  year. 
But  this  was  the  very  poetry  of  the  profession.  The 
others  whom  I  knew  were  somewhat  dry.  A  faint  fla- 
vour of  the  gardener  hung  about  them,  but  sophisticated 
and  disbloomed.  They  had  engagements  to  keep,  not 
alone  with  the  deliberate  series  of  the  seasons,  but  with 
mankind's  clocks  and  hour-long  measurement  of  time. 
And  thus  there  was  no  leisure  for  the  relishing  pinch, 
or  the  hour-long  gossip,  foot  on  spade.  They  were 
men  wrapped  up  in  their  grim  business;  they  liked  well 
to  open  long-closed  family  vaults,  blowing  in  the  key 
and  throwing  wide  the  grating;  and  they  carried  in  their 
minds  a  calendar  of  names  and  dates.  It  would  be  "in 
fifty-twa  "  that  such  a  tomb  was  last  opened  for  "  Miss 
Jemimy."  It  was  thus  they  spoke  of  their  past  patients  — 
familiarly  but  not  without  respect,  like  old  family  ser- 
vants. Here  is  indeed  a  servant,  whom  we  forget  that 
we  possess ;  who  does  not  wait  at  the  bright  table,  or 
run  at  the  bell's  summons,  but  patiently  smokes  his  pipe 
beside  the  mortuary  fire,  and  in  his  faithful  memory 
notches  the  burials  of  our  race.  To  suspect  Shake- 
speare in  his  maturity  of  a  superficial  touch  savours  of 
paradox ;  yet  he  was  surely  in  error  when  he  attributed 
insensibility  to  the  digger  of  the  grave.  But  perhaps  it 
is  on  Hamlet  that  the  charge  should  lie ;  or  perhaps  the 
English  sexton  differs  from  the  Scotch.  The  "good- 
man  delver,"  reckoning  up  his  years  of  office,  might 

203 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

have  at  least  suggested  other  thoughts.  It  is  a  pride 
common  among  sextons.  A  cabinet-maker  does  not 
count  his  cabinets,  nor  even  an  author  his  volumes,  save 
when  they  stare  upon  him  from  the  shelves;  but  the 
grave-digger  numbers  his  graves.  He  would  indeed 
be  something  different  from  human  if  his  solitary  open- 
air  and  tragic  labours  left  not  a  broad  mark  upon  his 
mind.  There,  in  his  tranquil  aisle,  apart  from  city  clam- 
our, among  the  cats  and  robins  and  the  ancient  effigies 
and  legends  of  the  tomb,  he  waits  the  continual  passage 
of  his  contemporaries,  falling  like  minute  drops  into 
eternity.  As  they  fall,  he  counts  them ;  and  this  enu- 
meration, which  was  at  first  perhaps  appalling  to  his  soul, 
in  the  process  of  years  and  by  the  kindly  influence  of 
habit  grows  to  be  his  pride  and  pleasure.  There  are 
many  common  stories  telling  how  he  piques  himself  on 
crowded  cemeteries.  But  I  will  rather  tell  of  the  old 
grave-digger  of  Monkton,  to  whose  unsufTering  bedside 
the  minister  was  summoned.  He  dwelt  in  a  cottage 
built  into  the  wall  of  the  churchyard;  and  through  a 
bull's-eye  pane  above  his  bed  he  could  see,  as  he  lay 
dying,  the  rank  grasses  and  the  upright  and  recumbent 
stones.  Dr.  Laurie  was,  I  think,  a  Moderate :  'tis  cer- 
tain, at  least,  that  he  took  a  very  Roman  view  of  death- 
bed dispositions;  for  he  told  the  old  man  that  he  had 
lived  beyond  man's  natural  years,  that  his  life  had  been 
easy  and  reputable,  that  his  family  had  all  grown  up  and 
been  a  credit  to  his  care,  and  that  it  now  behoved  him 
unregretfully  to  gird  his  loins  and  follow  the  majority. 
The  gravedigger  heard  him  out;  then  he  raised  himself 
upon  one  elbow,  and  with  the  other  hand  pointed 
through  the  window  to  the  scene  of  his  life-long  labours. 

204 


OLD   MORTALITY 

"  Doctor/'  he  said,  "  I  ha'e  laid  three  hunner  and  fower- 
score  in  that  kirkyaird;  an  it  had  been  His  wull,"  indi- 
cating Heaven,  "I  would  ha'e  likit  weel  to  ha'e  made 
out  the  fower  hunner."  But  it  was  not  to  be;  this  tra- 
gedian of  the  fifth  act  had  now  another  part  to  play ; 
and  the  time  had  come  when  others  were  to  gird  and 
carry  him. 


I  would  fain  strike  a  note  that  should  be  more  heroical ; 
but  the  ground  of  all  youth's  suffering,  solitude,  hysteria, 
and  haunting  of  the  grave,  is  nothing  else  than  naked, 
ignorant  selfishness.  It  is  himself  that  he  sees  dead ; 
those  are  his  virtues  that  are  forgotten ;  his  is  the  vague 
epitaph.  Pity  him  but  the  more,  if  pity  be  your  cue; 
for  where  a  man  is  all  pride,  vanity,  and  personal  aspi- 
ration, he  goes  through  fire  unshielded.  In  every  part 
and  corner  of  our  life,  to  lose  oneself  is  to  be  gainer;  to 
forget  oneself  is  to  be  happy ;  and  this  poor,  laughable 
and  tragic  fool  has  not  yet  learned  the  rudiments ;  him- 
self, giant  Prometheus,  is  still  ironed  on  the  peaks  of 
Caucasus.  But  by  and  by  his  truant  interests  will  leave 
that  tortured  body,  slip  abroad  and  gather  flowers. 
Then  shall  death  appear  before  him  in  an  altered  guise ; 
no  longer  as  a  doom  peculiar  to  himself,  whether  fate's 
crowning  injustice  or  his  own  last  vengeance  upon  those 
who  fail  to  value  him ;  but  now  as  a  power  that  wounds 
him  far  more  tenderly,  not  without  solemn  compensa- 
tions, taking  and  giving,  bereaving  and  yet  storing  up. 

The  first  step  for  all  is  to  learn  to  the  dregs  our  own 
ignoble  fallibility.  When  we  have  fallen  through  story 
after  story  of  our  vanity  and  aspiration,  and  sit  rueful 

205 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

among  the  ruins,  then  it  is  that  we  begin  to  measure  the 
stature  of  our  friends :  how  they  stand  between  us  and 
our  own  contempt,  believing  in  our  best;  how,  linking 
us  with  others,  and  still  spreading  wide  the  influential 
circle,  they  weave  us  in  and  in  with  the  fabric  of  con- 
temporary life ;  and  to  what  petty  size  they  dwarf  the 
virtues  and  the  vices  that  appeared  gigantic  in  our  youth. 
So  that  at  the  last,  when  such  a  pin  falls  out — when 
there  vanishes  in  the  least  breath  of  time  one  of  those 
rich  magazines  of  life  on  which  we  drew  for  our  supply 
—  when  he  who  had  first  dawned  upon  us  as  a  face 
among  the  faces  of  the  city,  and,  still  growing,  came  to 
bulk  on  our  regard  with  those  clear  features  of  the  loved 
and  living  man,  falls  in  a  breath  to  memory  and  shadow, 
there  falls  along  with  him  a  whole  wing  of  the  palace  of 
our  life. 

HI 

One  such  face  I  now  remember;  one  such  blank  some 
half  a  dozen  of  us  labour  to  dissemble.  In  his  youth  he 
was  most  beautiful  in  person,  most  serene  and  genial  by 
disposition;  full  of  racy  words  and  quaint  thoughts. 
Laughter  attended  on  his  coming.  He  had  the  air  of  a 
great  gentleman,  jovial  and  royal  with  his  equals,  and 
to  the  poorest  student  gentle  and  attentive.  Power 
seemed  to  reside  in  him  exhaustless ;  we  saw  him  stoop 
to  play  with  us,  but  held  him  marked  for  higher  des- 
tinies; we  loved  his  notice;  and  I  have  rarely  had  my 
pride  more  gratified  than  when  he  sat  at  my  father's 
table,  my  acknowledged  friend.  So  he  walked  among 
us,  both  hands  full  of  gifts,  carrying  with  nonchalance 
the  seeds  of  a  most  influential  life. 

206 


OLD   MORTALITY 

The  powers  and  the  ground  of  friendship  is  a  mys- 
tery ;  but,  looking  back,  I  can  discern  that,  in  part,  we 
loved  the  thing  he  was,  for  some  shadow  of  what  he 
was  to  be.  For  with  all  his  beauty,  power,  breeding, 
urbanity  and  mirth,  there  was  in  those  days  something 
soulless  in  our  friend.  He  would  astonish  us  by  sal- 
lies, witty,  innocent  and  inhumane;  and  by  a  misap- 
plied Johnsonian  pleasantry,  demolish  honest  sentiment. 
I  can  still  see  and  hear  him,  as  he  went  his  way  along 
the  lamplit  streets,  Li  ci  darem  la  mano  on  his  lips, 
a  noble  figure  of  a  youth,  but  following  vanity  and 
incredulous  of  good;  and  sure  enough,  somewhere 
on  the  high  seas  of  life,  with  his  health,  his  hopes, 
his  patrimony  and  his  self-respect,  miserably  went 
down. 

From  this  disaster,  like  a  spent  swimmer,  he  came 
desperately  ashore,  bankrupt  of  money  and  consider- 
ation; creeping  to  the  family  he  had  deserted;  with 
broken  wing,  never  more  to  rise.  But  in  his  face  there 
was  a  light  of  knowledge  that  was  new  to  it.  Of  the 
wounds  of  his  body  he  was  never  healed;  died  of  them 
gradually,  with  clear-eyed  resignation ;  of  his  wounded 
pride,  we  knew  only  from  his  silence.  He  returned  to 
that  city  where  he  had  lorded  it  in  his  ambitious  youth  ; 
lived  there  alone,  seeing  few;  striving  to  retrieve  the 
irretrievable;  at  times  still  grappling  with  that  mortal 
frailty  that  had  brought  him  down ;  still  joying  in  his 
friend's  successes ;  his  laugh  still  ready  but  with  kindlier 
music;  and  over  all  his  thoughts  the  shadow  of  that 
unalterable  law  which  he  had  disavowed  and  which 
had  brought  him  low.  Lastly,  when  his  bodily  evils 
had  quite  disabled  him,  he  lay  a  great  while  dying,  still 

207 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

without  complaint,  still  finding  interests;  to  his  last 
step  gentle,  urbane  and  with  the  will  to  smile. 

The  tale  of  this  great  failure  is,  to  those  who  re- 
mained true  to  him,  the  tale  of  a  success.  In  his  youth 
he  took  thought  for  no  one  but  himself;  when  he  came 
ashore  again,  his  whole  armada  lost,  he  seemed  to  think 
of  none  but  others.  Such  was  his  tenderness  for  others, 
such  his  instinct  of  fine  courtesy  and  pride,  that  of  that 
impure  passion  of  remorse  he  never  breathed  a  syllable; 
even  regret  was  rare  with  him,  and  pointed  with  a  jest. 
You  would  not  have  dreamed,  if  you  had  known  him 
then,  that  this  was  that  great  failure,  that  beacon  to 
young  men,  over  whose  fall  a  whole  society  had  hissed 
and  pointed  fingers.  Often  have  we  gone  to  him,  red- 
hot  with  our  own  hopeful  sorrows,  railing  on  the  rose- 
leaves  in  our  princely  bed  of  life,  and  he  would  patiently 
give  ear  and  wisely  counsel;  and  it  was  only  upon 
some  return  of  our  own  thoughts  that  we  were  re- 
minded what  manner  of  man  this  was  to  whom  we 
disembosomed :  a  man,  by  his  own  fault,  ruined ;  shut 
out  of  the  garden  of  his  gifts ;  his  whole  city  of  hope 
both  ploughed  and  salted ;  silently  awaiting  the  deliv- 
erer. Then  something  took  us  by  the  throat;  and  to 
see  him  there,  so  gentle,  patient,  brave  and  pious,  op- 
pressed but  not  cast  down,  sorrow  was  so  swallowed 
up  in  admiration  that  we  could  not  dare  to  pity  him. 
Even  if  the  old  fault  flashed  out  again,  it  but  awoke  our 
wonder  that,  in  that  lost  battle,  he  should  have  still  the 
energy  to  fight.  He  had  gone  to  ruin  with  a  kind  of 
kingly  abandon,  like  one  who  condescended ;  but  once 
ruined,  with  the  lights  all  out,  he  fought  as  for  a  king- 
dom.    Most  men,  finding  themselves  the  authors  of 

208 


OLD   MORTALITY 

their  own  disgrace,  rail  the  louder  against  God  or  des- 
tiny. Most  men,  when  they  repent,  oblige  their  friends 
to  share  the  bitterness  of  that  repentance.  But  he  had 
held  an  inquest  and  passed  sentence:  mene,  mene ;  and 
condemned  himself  to  smiling  silence.  He  had  given 
trouble  enough ;  had  earned  misfortune  amply,  and  fore- 
gone the  right  to  murmur. 

Thus  was  our  old  comrade,  like  Samson,  careless  in 
his  days  of  strength ;  but  on  the  coming  of  adversity, 
and  when  that  strength  was  gone  that  had  betrayed 
him — "for  our  strength  is  weakness" — he  began  to 
blossom  and  bring  forth.  Well,  now,  he  is  out  of  the 
fight:  the  burden  that  he  bore  thrown  down  before  the 
great  deliverer.     We 

"  in  the  vast  cathedral  leave  him: 
God  accept  him, 
Christ  receive  him !  " 


IV 

If  we  go  now  and  look  on  these  innumerable  epitaphs, 
the  pathos  and  the  irony  are  strangely  fled.  They  do 
not  stand  merely  to  the  dead,  these  foolish  monuments ; 
they  are  pillars  and  legends  set  up  to  glorify  the  difficult 
but  not  desperate  life  of  man.  This  ground  is  hallowed 
by  the  heroes  of  defeat. 

I  see  the  indifferent  pass  before  my  friend's  last  rest- 
ing-place; pause,  with  a  shrug  of  pity,  marvelling  that 
so  rich  an  argosy  had  sunk.  A  pity,  now  that  he  is 
done  with  suffering,  a  pity  most  uncalled  for,  and  an 
ignorant  wonder.  Before  those  who  loved  him,  his 
memory  shines  like  a  reproach;  they  honour  him  for 

209 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

silent  lessons;  they  cherish  his  example;  and  in  what 
remains  before  them  of  their  toil,  fear  to  be  unworthy 
of  the  dead.  For  this  proud  man  was  one  of  those  who 
prospered  in  the  valley  of  humiliation ;  —  of  whom  Bun- 
van  wrote  that,  "Though  Christian  had  the  hard  hap  to 
meet  in  the  valley  with  Apollyon,  yet  I  must  tell  you, 
that  in  former  times  men  have  met  with  angels  here ; 
have  found  pearls  here;  and  have  in  this  place  found  the 
words  of  life." 


2IO 


IV.      A  COLLEGE  MAGAZINE 


ALL  through  my  boyhood  and  youth,  I  was  known 
l  and  pointed  out  for  the  pattern  of  an  idler;  and 
yet  I  was  always  busy  on  my  own  private  end,  which  was 
to  learn  to  write.  I  kept  always  two  books  in  my  pocket, 
one  to  read,  one  to  write  in.  As  I  walked,  my  mind  was 
busy  fitting  what  I  saw  with  appropriate  words ;  when 
I  sat  by  the  roadside,  I  would  either  read,  or  a  pencil 
and  a  penny  version-book  would  be  in  my  hand,  to  note 
down  the  features  of  the  scene  or  commemorate  some 
halting  stanzas.  Thus  I  lived  with  words.  And  what 
I  thus  wrote  was  for  no  ulterior  use,  it  was  written  con- 
sciously for  practice.  It  was  not  so  much  that  I  wished 
to  be  an  author  (though  I  wished  that  too)  as  that  I  had 
vowed  that  I  would  learn  to  write.  That  was  a  profi- 
ciency that  tempted  me ;  and  I  practised  to  acquire  it,  as 
men  learn  to  whittle,  in  a  wager  with  myself.  Descrip- 
tion was  the  principal  field  of  my  exercise ;  for  to  any 
one  with  senses  there  is  always  something  worth  de- 
scribing, and  town  and  country  are  but  one  continuous 
subject.  But  I  worked  in  other  ways  also;  often  ac- 
companied my  walks  with  dramatic  dialogues,  in  which 
I  played  many  parts;  and  often  exercised  myself  in  writ- 
ing down  conversations  from  memory. 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

This  was  all  excellent,  no  doubt;  so  were  the  diaries 
I  sometimes  tried  to  keep,  but  always  and  very  speed- 
ily discarded,  finding  them  a  school  of  posturing  and 
melancholy  self-deception.  And  yet  this  was  not  the 
most  efficient  part  of  my  training.  Good  though  it  was, 
it  only  taught  me  (so  far  as  I  have  learned  them  at  all) 
the  lower  and  less  intellectual  elements  of  the  art,  the 
choice  of  the  essential  note  and  the  right  word :  things 
that  to  a  happier  constitution  had  perhaps  come  by 
nature.  And  regarded  as  training,  it  had  one  grave  de- 
fect ;  for  it  set  me  no  standard  of  achievement.  So  that 
there  was  perhaps  more  profit,  as  there  was  certainly 
more  effort,  in  my  secret  labours  at  home.  Whenever 
1  read  a  book  or  a  passage  that  particularly  pleased  me, 
in  which  a  thing  was  said  or  an  effect  rendered  with 
propriety,  in  which  there  was  either  some  conspicuous 
force  or  some  happy  distinction  in  the  style,  I  must  sit 
down  at  once  and  set  myself  to  ape  that  quality.  I 
was  unsuccessful,  and  I  knew  it;  and  tried  again,  and 
was  again  unsuccessful  and  always  unsuccessful;  but 
at  least  in  these  vain  bouts,  I  got  some  practice  in 
rhythm,  in  harmony,  in  construction  and  the  co-or- 
dination of  parts.  I  have  thus  played  the  sedulous  ape 
to  Hazlitt,  to  Lamb,  to  Wordsworth,  to  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  to  IDefoe,  to  Hawthorne,  to  Montaigne,  to  Bau- 
delaire and  to  Obermann.  I  remember  one  of  these 
monkey  tricks,  which  was  called  The  Vanity  of  Morals: 
it  was  to  have  had  a  second  part,  The  Vanity  of  Knowl- 
edge; and  as  I  had  neither  morality  nor  scholarship, 
the  names  were  apt;  but  the  second  part  was  never 
attempted,  and  the  first  part  was  written  (which  is  my 
reason  for  recalling  it,  ghostlike,  from  its  ashes)  no  less 


A  COLLEGE   MAGAZINE 

than  three  times :  first  in  the  manner  of  Hazlitt,  second 
in  the  manner  of  Ruskin,  who  had  cast  on  me  a  passing 
spell,  and  third,  in  a  laborious  pasticcio  of  Sir  Thomas 
Browne.  So  with  my  other  works :  Cain,  an  epic,  was 
(save  the  mark!)  an  imitation  of  Sordello:  Robin  Hood, 
a  tale  in  verse,  took  an  eclectic  middle  course  among 
the  fields  of  Keats,  Chaucer  and  Morris :  in  Monmouth, 
a  tragedy,  I  reclined  on  the  bosom  of  Mr.  Swinburne; 
in  my  innumerable  gouty-footed  lyrics,  I  followed  many 
masters;  in  the  first  draft  of  The  King's  Pardon,  a 
tragedy,  I  was  on  the  trail  of  no  lesser  man  than  John 
Webster;  in  the  second  draft  of  the  same  piece,  with 
staggering  versatility,  I  had  shifted  my  allegiance  to 
Congreve,  and  of  course  conceived  my  fable  in  a  less 
serious  vein  —  for  it  was  not  Congreve's  verse,  it  was 
his  exquisite  prose,  that  I  admired  and  sought  to  copy. 
Even  at  the  age  of  thirteen  I  had  tried  to  do  justice  to 
the  inhabitants  of  the  famous  city  of  Peebles  in  the  style 
of  the  Book  of  Snobs.  So  I  might  go  on  for  ever,  through 
all  my  abortive  novels,  and  down  to  my  later  plays,  of 
which  I  think  more  tenderly,  for  they  were  not  only 
conceived  at  first  under  the  bracing  influence  of  old 
Dumas,  but  have  met  with  resurrections :  one,  strangely 
bettered  by  another  hand,  came  on  the  stage  itself  and 
was  played  by  bodily  actors ;  the  other,  originally  known 
as  Semiramis:  a  Tragedy,  I  have  observed  on  bookstalls 
under  the  alias  of  Prince  Otto.  But  enough  has  been 
said  to  show  by  what  arts  of  impersonation,  and  in  what 
purely  ventriloquial  efforts  I  first  saw  my  words  on 
paper. 

That,  like  it  or  not,  is  the  way  to  learn  to  write; 
whether  I  have  profited  or  not,  that  is  the  way.     It  was 

213 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

so  Keats  learned,  and  there  was  never  a  finer  tempera- 
ment for  literature  than  Keats's ;  it  was  so,  if  we  could 
trace  it  out,  that  all  men  have  learned ;  and  that  is  why 
a  revival  of  letters  is  always  accompanied  or  heralded 
by  a  cast  back  to  earlier  and  fresher  models.  Perhaps 
I  hear  some  one  cry  out :  But  this  is  not  the  way  to  be 
original !  It  is  not ;  nor  is  there  any  way  but  to  be  born 
so.  Nor  yet,  if  you  are  born  original,  is  there  anything 
in  this  training  that  shall  clip  the  wings  of  your  origin- 
ality. There  can  be  none  more  original  than  Montaigne, 
neither  could  any  be  more  unlike  Cicero ;  yet  no  crafts- 
man can  fail  to  see  how  much  the  one  must  have  tried 
in  his  time  to  imitate  the  other.  Burns  is  the  very  type 
of  a  prime  force  in  letters :  he  was  of  all  men  the  most 
imitative.  Shakespeare  himself,  the  imperial,  proceeds 
directly  from  a  school.  It  is  only  from  a  school  that 
we  can  expect  to  have  good  writers ;  it  is  almost  invari- 
ably from  a  school  that  great  writers,  these  lawless  ex- 
ceptions, issue.  Nor  is  there  anything  here  that  should 
astonish  the  considerate.  Before  he  can  tell  what 
cadences  he  truly  prefers,  the  student  should  have  tried 
all  that  are  possible ;  before  he  can  choose  and  preserve 
a  fitting  key  of  words,  he  should  long  have  practised 
the  literary  scales;  and  it  is  only  after  years  of  such 
gymnastic  that  he  can  sit  down  at  last,  legions  of  words 
swarming  to  his  call,  dozens  of  turns  of  phrase  simul- 
taneously bidding  for  his  choice,  and  he  himself  knowing 
what  he  wants  to  do  and  (within  the  narrow  limit  of  a 
man's  ability)  able  to  do  it. 

And  it  is  the  great  point  of  these  imitations  that  there 
still  shines  beyond  the  student's  reach  his  inimitable 
model.     Let  him  try  as  he  please,  he  is  still  sure  of  fail- 

214 


A   COLLEGE   MAGAZINE 

ure;  and  it  is  a  very  old  and  a  very  true  saying  that  fail- 
ure is  the  only  highroad  to  success.  I  must  have  had 
some  disposition  to  learn;  for  I  clear-sightedly  con- 
demned my  own  performances.  I  liked  doing  them 
indeed;  but  when  they  were  done,  I  could  see  they 
were  rubbish.  In  consequence,  I  very  rarely  showed 
them  even  to  my  friends ;  and  such  friends  as  I  chose  to 
be  my  confidants  I  must  have  chosen  well,  for  they  had 
the  friendliness  to  be  quite  plain  with  me.  "  Padding," 
said  one.  Another  wrote:  "  I  cannot  understand  why 
you  do  lyrics  so  badly."  No  more  could  I!  Thrice  I 
put  myself  in  the  way  of  a  more  authoritative  rebuff,  by 
sending  a  paper  to  a  magazine.  These  were  returned ; 
and  I  was  not  surprised  nor  even  pained.  If  they  had 
not  been  looked  at,  as  (like  all  amateurs)  I  suspected 
was  the  case,  there  was  no  good  in  repeating  the  experi- 
ment; if  they  had  been  looked  at  —  well,  then  I  had  not 
yet  learned  to  write,  and  I  must  keep  on  learning  and 
living.  Lastly,  I  had  a  piece  of  good  fortune  which  is 
the  occasion  of  this  paper,  and  by  which  I  was  able  to 
see  my  literature  in  print,  and  to  measure  experiment- 
ally how  far  I  stood  !>om  the  favour  of  the  public. 


The  Speculative  Society  is  a  body  of  some  antiquity, 
and  has  counted  among  its  members  Scott,  Brougham, 
Jeffrey,  Horner,  Benjamin  Constant,  Robert  Emmet,  and 
many  a  legal  and  local  celebrity  besides.  By  an  acci- 
dent, variously  explained,  it  has  its  rooms  in  the  very 
buildings  of  the  University  of  Edinburgh :  a  hall,  Tur- 
key-carpeted, hung  with  pictures,  looking,  when  lighted 

215 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

up  at  night  with  fire  and  candle,  like  some  goodly  din- 
ing-room ;  a  passage-like  library,  walled  with  books  in 
their  wire  cages ;  and  a  corridor  with  a  fireplace,  benches, 
a  table,  many  prints  of  famous  members,  and  a  mural 
tablet  to  the  virtues  of  a  former  secretary.  Here  a  mem- 
ber can  warm  himself  and  loaf  and  read ;  here,  in  defi- 
ance of  Senatus-consults,  he  can  smoke.  The  Senatus 
looks  askance  at  these  privileges;  looks  even  with  a 
somewhat  vinegar  aspect  on  the  whole  society ;  which 
argues  a  lack  of  proportion  in  the  learned  mind,  for  the 
world,  we  may  be  sure,  will  prize  far  higher  this  haunt 
of  dead  lions  than  all  the  living  dogs  of  the  professorate. 
I  sat  one  December  morning  in  the  library  of  the  Spec- 
ulative ;  a  very  humble-minded  youth,  though  it  was  a 
virtue  I  never  had  much  credit  for;  yet  proud  of  my 
privileges  as  a  member  of  the  Spec. ;  proud  of  the  pipe 
I  was  smoking  in  the  teeth  of  the  Senatus ;  and  in  par- 
ticular, proud  of  being  in  the  next  room  to  three  very 
distinguished  students,  who  were  then  conversing  be- 
side the  corridor  fire.  One  of  these  has  now  his  name 
on  the  back  of  several  volumes,  and  his  voice,  I  learn,  is 
influential  in  the  law  courts.  Of  the  death  of  the  second, 
you  have  just  been  reading  what  I  had  to  say.  And  the 
third  also  has  escaped  out  of  that  battle  of  life  in  which 
he  fought  so  hard,  it  may  be  so  unwisely.  They  were 
all  three,  as  I  have  said,  notable  students;  but  this  was 
the  most  conspicuous.  Wealthy,  handsome,  ambitious, 
adventurous,  diplomatic,  a  reader  of  Balzac,  and  of  all 
men  that  I  have  known,  the  most  like  to  one  of  Balzac's 
characters,  he  led  a  life,  and  was  attended  by  an  ill  for- 
tune, that  could  be  properly  set  forth  only  in  the  Come' 
die  Humaine.     He  had  then  his  eye  on  Parliament ;  and 

216 


A   COLLEGE   MAGAZINE 

soon  after  the  time  of  which  I  write,  he  made  a  showy 
speech  at  a  political  dinner,  was  cried  up  to  heaven  next 
day  in  the  Courant,  and  the  day  after  was  dashed  lower 
than  earth  with  a  charge  of  plagiarism  in  the  Scotsman. 
Report  would  have  it  (I  daresay,  very  wrongly)  that  he 
was  betrayed  by  one  in  whom  he  particularly  trusted, 
and  that  the  author  of  the  charge  had  learned  its  truth 
from  his  own  lips.  Thus,  at  least,  he  was  up  one  day 
on  a  pinnacle,  admired  and  envied  by  all;  and  the  next, 
though  still  but  a  boy,  he  was  publicly  disgraced.  The 
blow  would  have  broken  a  less  finely  tempered  spirit; 
and  even  him  I  suppose  it  rendered  reckless;  for  he  took 
flight  to  London,  and  there,  in  a  fast  club,  disposed  of 
the  bulk  of  his  considerable  patrimony  in  the  space  of 
one  winter.  For  years  thereafter  he  lived  I  know  not 
how ;  always  well  dressed,  always  in  good  hotels  and 
good  society,  always  with  empty  pockets.  The  charm 
of  his  manner  may  have  stood  him  in  good  stead;  but 
though  my  own  manners  are  very  agreeable,  I  have 
never  found  in  them  a  source  of  livelihood ;  and  to  ex- 
plain the  miracle  of  his  continued  existence,  I  must  fall 
back  upon  the  theory  of  the  philosopher,  that  in  his  case, 
as  in  all  of  the  same  kind,  "there  was  a  suffering  rela- 
tive in  the  background."  From  this  genteel  eclipse  he 
reappeared  upon  the  scene,  and  presently  sought  me  out 
in  the  character  of  a  generous  editor.  It  is  in  this  part 
that  I  best  remember  him ;  tall,  slender,  with  a  not  un- 
graceful stoop ;  looking  quite  like  a  refined  gentleman, 
and  quite  like  an  urbane  adventurer;  smiling  with  an 
engaging  ambiguity;  cocking  at  you  one  peaked  eye- 
brow with  a  great  appearance  of  finesse ;  speaking  low 
and  sweet  and  thick,  with  a  touch  of  burr ;  telling  strange 

217 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

tales  with  singular  deliberation  and,  to  a  patient  listener, 
excellent  effect.  After  all  these  ups  and  downs,  he 
seemed  still,  like  the  rich  student  that  he  was  of  yore, 
to  breathe  of  money;  seemed  still  perfectly  sure  of  him- 
self and  certain  of  his  end.  Yet  he  was  then  upon  the 
brink  of  his  last  overthrow.  He  had  set  himself  to  found 
the  strangest  thing  in  our  society :  one  of  those  periodi- 
cal sheets  from  which  men  suppose  themselves  to  learn 
opinions ;  in  which  young  gentlemen  from  the  univer- 
sities are  encouraged,  at  so  much  a  line,  to  garble  facts, 
insult  foreign  nations  and  calumniate  private  individuals ; 
and  which  are  now  the  source  of  glory,  so  that  if  a  man's 
name  be  often  enough  printed  there,  he  becomes  a  kind 
of  demigod ;  and  people  will  pardon  him  when  he  talks 
back  and  forth,  as  they  do  for  Mr.  Gladstone;  and  crowd 
him  to  suffocation  on  railway  platforms,  as  they  did  the 
other  day  to  General  Boulanger;  and  buy  his  literary 
works,  as  I  hope  you  have  just  done  for  me.  Our  fa- 
thers, when  they  were  upon  some  great  enterprise,  would 
sacrifice  a  life ;  building,  it  may  be,  a  favourite  slave  into 
the  foundations  of  their  palace.  It  was  with  his  own 
life  that  my  companion  disarmed  the  envy  of  the  gods. 
He  fought  his  paper  single-handed ;  trusting  no  one,  for 
he  was  something  of  a  cynic ;  up  early  and  down  late, 
for  he  was  nothing  of  a  sluggard ;  daily  ear-wigging  in- 
fluential men,  for  he  was  a  master  of  ingratiation.  In 
that  slender  and  silken  fellow  there  must  have  been  a 
rare  vein  of  courage,  that  he  should  thus  have  died  at 
his  employment;  and  doubtless  ambition  spoke  loudly 
in  his  ear,  and  doubtless  love  also,  for  it  seems  there  was 
a  marriage  in  his  view  had  he  succeeded.  But  he  died, 
and  his  paper  died  after  him ;  and  of  all  this  grace,  and 

2lS 


A   COLLEGE  MAGAZINE 

tact,  and  courage,  it  must  seem  to  our  blind  eyes  as  if 
there  had  come  literally  nothing. 

These  three  students  sat,  as  I  was  saying,  in  the  cor- 
ridor, under  the  mural  tablet  that  records  the  virtues  of 
Macbean,  the  former  secretary.  We  would  often  smile 
at  that  ineloquent  memorial,  and  thought  it  a  poor  thing 
to  come  into  the  world  at  all  and  leave  no  more  behind 
one  than  Macbean.  And  yet  of  these  three,  two  are 
gone  and  have  left  less ;  and  this  book,  perhaps,  when 
it  is  old  and  foxy,  and  some  one  picks  it  up  in  a  corner 
of  a  book-shop,  and  glances  through  it,  smiling  at  the 
old,  graceless  turns  of  speech,  and  perhaps  for  the  love 
of  Alma  Mater  (which  may  be  still  extant  and  flourish- 
ing) buys  it,  not  without  haggling,  for  some  pence  — 
this  book  may  alone  preserve  a  memory  of  James  Walter 
Ferrier  and  Robert  Glasgow  Brown. 

Their  thoughts  ran  very  differently  on  that  December 
morning;  they  were  all  on  fire  with  ambition;  and 
when  they  had  called  me  in  to  them,  and  made  me  a 
sharer  in  their  design,  I  too  became  drunken  with  pride 
and  hope.  We  were  to  found  a  University  magazine. 
A  pair  of  little,  active  brothers — Livingstone  by  name, 
great  skippers  on  the  foot,  great  rubbers  of  the  hands, 
who  kept  a  book-shop  over  against  the  University  build- 
ing— had  been  debauched  to  play  the  part  of  publishers. 
We  four  were  to  be  conjunct  editors  and,  what  was  the 
main  point  of  the  concern,  to  print  our  own  works ; 
while,  by  every  rule  of  arithmetic — that  flatterer  of  cre- 
dulity—  the  adventure  must  succeed  and  bring  great 
profit.  Well,  well:  it  was  a  bright  vision.  I  went 
home  that  morning  walking  upon  air.  To  have  been 
chosen  by  these  three  distinguished  students  was  to  me 

219 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

the  most  unspeakable  advance ;  it  was  my  first  draught 
of  consideration ;  it  reconciled  me  to  myself  and  to  my 
fellow-men ;  and  as  I  steered  round  the  railings  at  the 
Tron,  I  could  not  withhold  my  lips  from  smiling  pub- 
licly. Yet,  in  the  bottom  of  my  heart,  I  knew  that 
magazine  would  be  a  grim  fiasco ;  I  knew  it  would  not 
be  worth  reading ;  I  knew,  even  if  it  were,  that  nobody 
would  read  it;  and  I  kept  wondering  how  I  should  be 
able,  upon  my  compact  income  of  twelve  pounds  per 
annum,  payable  monthly,  to  meet  my  share  in  the  ex- 
pense. It  was  a  comfortable  thought  to  me  that  I  had 
a  father. 

The  magazine  appeared,  in  a  yellow  cover  which  was 
the  best  part  of  it,  for  at  least  it  was  unassuming;  it 
ran  four  months  in  undisturbed  obscurity,  and  died 
without  a  gasp.  The  first  number  was  edited  by  all 
four  of  us  with  prodigious  bustle ;  the  second  fell  prin- 
cipally into  the  hands  of  Ferrier  and  me;  the  third  I 
edited  alone;  and  it  has  long  been  a  solemn  question 
who  it  was  that  edited  the  fourth.  It  would  perhaps 
be  still  more  difficult  to  say  who  read  it.  Poor  yellow 
sheet,  that  looked  so  hopefully  in  the  Livingstones'  win- 
dow !  Poor,  harmless  paper,  that  might  have  gone  to 
print  a  Shakespeare  on,  and  was  instead  so  clumsily 
defaced  with  nonsense!  And,  shall  I  say,  Poor  Editors? 
I  cannot  pity  myself,  to  whom  it  was  all  pure  gain.  It 
was  no  news  to  me,  but  only  the  wholesome  confirma- 
tion of  my  judgment,  when  the  magazine  struggled 
into  half-birth,  and  instantly  sickened  and  subsided  into 
night.  I  had  sent  a  copy  to  the  lady  with  whom  my 
heart  was  at  that  time  somewhat  engaged,  and  who 
did  all  that  in  her  lay  to  break  it ;  and  she,  with  some 

220 


A   COLLEGE   MAGAZINE 

tact,  passed  over  the  gift  and  my  cherished  contributions 
in  silence.  I  will  not  say  that  I  was  pleased  at  this ;  but 
I  will  tell  her  now,  if  by  any  chance  she  takes  up  the 
work  of  her  former  servant,  that  I  thought  the  better  of 
her  taste.  I  cleared  the  decks  after  this  lost  engage- 
ment; had  the  necessary  interview  with  my  father, 
which  passed  off  not  amiss ;  paid  over  my  share  of  the 
expense  to  the  two  little,  active  brothers,  who  rubbed 
their  hands  as  much,  but  methought  skipped  rather  less 
than  formerly,  having  perhaps,  these  two  also,  em- 
barked upon  the  enterprise  with  some  graceful  illusions ; 
and  then,  reviewing  the  whole  episode,  I  told  myself 
that  the  time  was  not  yet  ripe,  nor  the  man  ready;  and 
to  work  I  went  again  with  my  penny  version-books, 
having  fallen  back  in  one  day  from  the  printed  author 
to  the  manuscript  student. 


in 

From  this  defunct  periodical  I  am  going  to  reprint  one 
of  my  own  papers.  The  poor  little  piece  is  all  tail-fore- 
most. I  have  done  my  best  to  straighten  its  array,  I  have 
pruned  it  fearlessly,  and  it  remains  invertebrate  and 
wordy.  No  self-respecting  magazine  would  print  the 
thing;  and  here  you  behold  it  in  a  bound  volume, 
not  for  any  worth  of  its  own,  but  for  the  sake  of  the 
man  whom  it  purports  dimly  to  represent  and  some  of 
whose  sayings  it  preserves ;  so  that  in  this  volume  of 
Memories  and  Portraits,  Robert  Young,  the  Swanston 
gardener,  may  stand  alongside  of  John  Todd,  the  Swan- 
ston shepherd.  Not  that  John  and  Robert  drew  very 
close  together  in  their  lives;  for  John  was  rough,  he 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

smelt  of  the  windy  brae;  and  Robert  was  gentle,  and 
smacked  of  the  garden  in  the  hollow.  Perhaps  it  is  to 
my  shame  that  I  liked  John  the  better  of  the  two;  he 
had  grit  and  dash,  and  that  salt  of  the  Old  Adam  that 
pleases  men  with  any  savage  inheritance  of  blood ;  and 
he  was  a  wayfarer  besides,  and  took  my  gipsy  fancy. 
But  however  that  may  be,  and  however  Robert's  pro- 
file may  be  blurred  in  the  boyish  sketch  that  follows,  he 
was  a  man  of  a  most  quaint  and  beautiful  nature,  whom, 
if  it  were  possible  to  recast  a  piece  of  work  so  old,  I 
should  like  well  to  draw  again  with  a  maturer  touch. 
And  as  I  think  of  him  and  of  John,  I  wonder  in  what 
other  country  two  such  men  would  be  found  dwelling 
together,  in  a  hamlet  of  some  twenty  cottages,  in  the 
woody  fold  of  a  green  hill. 


222 


V.    AN  OLD  SCOTCH  GARDENER 

I  THINK  I  might  almost  have  said  the  last:  some- 
where, indeed,  in  the  uttermost  glens  of  the  Lam- 
mermuir  or  among  the  south-western  hills  there  may 
yet  linger  a  decrepit  representative  of  this  bygone  good 
fellowship ;  but  as  far  as  actual  experience  goes,  I  have 
only  met  one  man  in  my  life  who  might  fitly  be  quoted 
in  the  same  breath  with  Andrew  Fairservice,  —  though 
without  his  vices.  He  was  a  man  whose  very  presence 
could  impart  a  savour  of  quaint  antiquity  to  the  baldest 
and  most  modern  flower-plots.  There  was  a  dignity 
about  his  tall  stooping  form,  and  an  earnestness  in  his 
wrinkled  face  that  recalled  Don  Quixote;  but  a  Don 
Quixote  who  had  come  through  the  training  of  the 
Covenant,  and  been  nourished  in  his  youth  on  Walker's 
Lives  and  The  Hind  let  Loose. 

Now,  as  I  could  not  bear  to  let  such  a  man  pass  away 
with  no  sketch  preserved  of  his  old-fashioned  virtues,  I 
hope  the  reader  will  take  this  as  an  excuse  for  the  pres- 
ent paper,  and  judge  as  kindly  as  he  can  the  infirmities 
of  my  description.  To  me,  who  find  it  so  difficult  to 
tell  the  little  that  I  know,  he  stands  essentially  as  a 
genius  loci.  It  is  impossible  to  separate  his  spare  form 
and  old  straw  hat  from  the  garden  in  the  lap  of  the  hill, 

223 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

with  its  rocks  overgrown  with  clematis,  its  shadowy 
walks,  and  the  splendid  breadth  of  champaign  that  one 
saw  from  the  north-west  corner.  The  garden  and  gar- 
dener seem  part  and  parcel  of  each  other.  When  I  take 
him  from  his  right  surroundings  and  try  to  make  him 
appear  for  me  on  paper,  he  looks  unreal  and  phantasmal : 
the  best  that  I  can  say  may  convey  some  notion  to  those 
that  never  saw  him,  but  to  me  it  will  be  ever  impotent. 
The  first  time  that  I  saw  him,  I  fancy  Robert  was 
pretty  old  already:  he  had  certainly  begun  to  use  his 
years  as  a  stalking  horse.  Latterly  he  was  beyond  all 
the  impudencies  of  logic,  considering  a  reference  to 
the  parish  register  worth  all  the  reasons  in  the  world. 
"  I  am  old  and  well  stricken  in  years/'  he  was  wont  to 
say ;  and  I  never  found  any  one  bold  enough  to  answer 
the  argument.  Apart  from  this  vantage  that  he  kept 
over  all  who  were  not  yet  octogenarian,  he  had  some 
other  drawbacks  as  a  gardener.  He  shrank  the 
very  place  he  cultivated.  The  dignity  and  reduced 
gentility  of  his  appearance  made  the  small  garden  cut  a 
sorry  figure.  He  was  full  of  tales  of  greater  situations 
in  his  younger  days.  He  spoke  of  castles  and  parks 
with  a  humbling  familiarity.  He  told  of  places  where 
under-gardeners  had  trembled  at  his  looks,  where  there 
were  meres  and  swanneries,  labyrinths  of  walk  and 
wildernesses  of  sad  shrubbery  in  his  control,  till  you 
could  not  help  feeling  that  it  was  condescension  on  his 
part  to  dress  your  humbler  garden  plots.  You  were 
thrown  at  once  into  an  invidious  position.  You  felt 
that  you  were  profiting  by  the  needs  of  dignity,  and 
that  his  poverty  and  not  his  will  consented  to  your 
vulgar  rule.     Involuntarily  you  compared  yourself  with 

224 


AN   OLD  SCOTCH   GARDENER 

the  swineherd  that  made  Alfred  watch  his  cakes,  or 
some  bloated  citizen  who  may  have  given  his  sons  and 
his  condescension  to  the  fallen  Dionysius.  Nor  were 
the  disagreeables  purely  fanciful  and  metaphysical,  for 
the  sway  that  he  exercised  over  your  feelings  he  ex- 
tended to  your  garden,  and,  through  the  garden,  to 
your  diet.  He  would  trim  a  hedge,  throw  away  a 
favourite  plant,  or  fill  the  most  favoured  and  fertile  sec- 
tion of  the  garden  with  a  vegetable  that  none  of  us 
could  eat,  in  supreme  contempt  for  our  opinion.  If  you 
asked  him  to  send  you  in  one  of  your  own  artichokes, 
"  That  I  wull,  mem/'  he  would  say,  "with  pleasure, 
for  it  is  mair  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive. ' '  Ay,  and 
even  when,  by  extra  twisting  of  the  screw,  we  pre- 
vailed on  him  to  prefer  our  commands  to  his  own  in- 
clination, and  he  went  away,  stately  and  sad,  professing 
that  "our  wull  was  his  pleasure/'  but  yet  reminding 
us  that  he  would  do  it  "  with  feelin's/' — even  then,  I 
say,  the  triumphant  master  felt  humbled  in  his  triumph, 
felt  that  he  ruled  on  sufferance  only,  that  he  was  taking 
a  mean  advantage  of  the  other's  low  estate,  and  that 
the  whole  scene  had  been  one  of  those  "slights  that 
patient  merit  of  the  unworthy  takes." 

In  flowers  his  taste  was  old-fashioned  and  catholic; 
affecting  sunflowers  and  dahlias,  wallflowers  and  roses, 
and  holding  in  supreme  aversion  whatsoever  was  fantas- 
tic, new-fashioned  or  wild.  There  was  one  exception 
to  this  sweeping  ban.  Foxgloves,  though  undoubtedly 
guilty  on  the  last  count,  he  not  only  spared,  but  loved ; 
and  when  the  shrubbery  was  being  thinned,  he  stayed 
his  hand  and  dexterously  manipulated  his  bill  in  order 
to  save  every  stately  stem.     In  boyhood,  as  he  told  me 

225 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

once,  speaking  in  that  tone  that  only  actors  and  the 
old-fashioned  common  folk  can  use  nowadays,  his  heart 
grew  "proud  "  within  him  when  he  came  on  a  burn- 
course  among  the  braes  of  Manor  that  shone  purple 
with  their  graceful  trophies ;  and  not  all  his  apprentice- 
ship and  practice  for  so  many  years  of  precise  garden- 
ing had  banished  these  boyish  recollections  from  his 
heart.  Indeed,  he  was  a  man  keenly  alive  to  the  beauty 
of  all  that  was  bygone.  He  abounded  in  old  stories  of 
his  boyhood,  and  kept  pious  account  of  all  his  former 
pleasures ;  and  when  he  went  ( on  a  holiday )  to  visit 
one  of  the  fabled  great  places  of  the  earth  where  he  had 
served  before,  he  came  back  full  of  little  pre-Raphaelite 
reminiscences  that  showed  real  passion  for  the  past, 
such  as  might  have  shaken  hands  with  Hazlitt  or  Jean- 
Jacques. 

But  however  his  sympathy  with  his  old  feelings  might 
affect  his  liking  for  the  foxgloves,  the  very  truth  was 
that  he  scorned  all  flowers  together.  They  were  but 
garnishings,  childish  toys,  trifling  ornaments  for  ladies' 
chimney-shelves.  It  was  towards  his  cauliflowers  and 
peas  and  cabbage  that  his  heart  grew  warm.  His  pref- 
erence for  the  more  useful  growths  was  such  that  cab- 
bages were  found  invading  the  flower-plots,  and  an  out- 
post of  savoys  was  once  discovered  in  the  centre  of  the 
lawn.  He  would  prelect  over  some  thriving  plant  with 
wonderful  enthusiasm,  piling  reminiscence  on  reminis- 
cence of  former  and  perhaps  yet  finer  specimens.  Yet 
even  then  he  did  not  let  the  credit  leave  himself.  He 
had,  indeed,  raised  "finer  o'  them" ;  but  it  seemed  that 
no  one  else  had  been  favoured  with  a  like  success.  AH 
other  gardeners,  in  fact,  were  mere  foils  to  his  own  su- 

226 


AN   OLD  SCOTCH   GARDENER 

perior  attainments ;  and  he  would  recount,  with  perfect 
soberness  of  voice  and  visage,  how  so  and  so  had  won- 
dered, and  such  another  could  scarcely  give  credit  to  his 
eyes.  Nor  was  it  with  his  rivals  only  that  he  parted 
praise  and  blame.  If  you  remarked  how  well  a  plant 
was  looking,  he  would  gravely  touch  his  hat  and  thank 
you  with  solemn  unction ;  all  credit  in  the  matter  falling 
to  him.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  you  called  his  attention 
to  some  back-going  vegetable,  he  would  quote  Scrip- 
ture: "Paul  may  plant  and  Apollos  may  water" ;  all 
blame  being  left  to  Providence,  on  the  score  of  deficient 
rain  or  untimely  frosts. 

There  was  one  thing  in  the  garden  that  shared  his 
preference  with  his  favourite  cabbages  and  rhubarb,  and 
that  other  was  the  bee-hive.  Their  sound,  their  indus- 
try, perhaps  their  sweet  product  also,  had  taken  hold  of 
his  imagination  and  heart,  whether  by  way  of  memory 
or  no  I  cannot  say,  although  perhaps  the  bees  too  were 
linked  to  him  by  some  recollection  of  Manor  braes  and 
his  country  childhood.  Nevertheless,  he  was  too  chary 
of  his  personal  safety  or  (let  me  rather  say)  his  personal 
dignity  to  mingle  in  any  active  office  towards  them. 
But  he  could  stand  by  while  one  of  the  contemned  rivals 
did  the  work  for  him,  and  protest  that  it  was  quite  safe 
in  spite  of  his  own  considerate  distance  and  the  cries  of 
the  distressed  assistant.  In  regard  to  bees,  he  was 
rather  a  man  of  word  than  deed,  and  some  of  his  most 
striking  sentences  had  the  bees  for  text.  "  They  are  in- 
deed wonder  fu'  creatures,  mem, ' '  he  said  once.  "  They 
just  mind  me  o'  what  the  Queen  of  Sheba  said  to  Solo- 
mon—  and  I  think  she  said  it  wi'  a  sigh — '  The  half  of 
it  hath  not  been  told  unto  me'/' 

227 


MEMORIES   AND    PORTRAITS 

As  far  as  the  Bible  goes  he  was  deeply  read.  Like 
the  old  Covenanters,  of  whom  he  was  the  worthy  rep- 
resentative, his  mouth  was  full  of  sacred  quotations ;  it 
was  the  book  that  he  had  studied  most  and  thought 
upon  most  deeply.  To  many  people  in  his  station  the 
Bible,  and  perhaps  Burns,  are  the  only  books  of  any 
vital  literary  merit  that  they  read,  feeding  themselves,  for 
the  rest,  on  the  draff  of  country  newspapers,  and  the 
very  instructive  but  not  very  palatable  pabulum  of  some 
cheap  educational  series.  This  was  Robert's  position. 
All  day  long  he  had  dreamed  of  the  Hebrew  stories,  and 
his  head  had  been  full  of  Hebrew  poetry  and  Gospel 
ethics ;  until  they  had  struck  deep  root  into  his  heart, 
and  the  very  expressions  had  become  a  part  of  him ;  so 
that  he  rarely  spoke  without  some  antique  idiom  or 
Scripture  mannerism  that  gave  a  raciness  to  the  merest 
trivialities  of  talk.  But  the  influence  of  the  Bible  did 
not  stop  here.  There  was  more  in  Robert  than  quaint 
phrase  and  ready  store  of  reference.  He  was  imbued 
with  a  spirit  of  peace  and  love :  he  interposed  between 
man  and  wife :  he  threw  himself  between  the  angry, 
touching  his  hat  the  while  with  all  the  ceremony  of  an 
usher:  he  protected  the  birds  from  everybody  but  him- 
self, seeing,  I  suppose,  a  great  difference  between  offi- 
cial execution  and  wanton  sport.  His  mistress  telling 
him  one  day  to  put  some  ferns  into  his  master's  partic- 
ular corner,  and  adding,  "Though,  indeed,  Robert,  he 
doesn't  deserve  them,  for  he  wouldn't  help  me  to  gather 
them,"  "Eh,  mem,"  replies  Robert,  "but  I  wouldnae 
say  that,  for  I  think  he's  just  a  most  deservin'  gentle- 
man." Again,  two  of  our  friends,  who  were  on  in- 
timate terms,  and  accustomed  to  use  language  to  each 


AN   OLD  SCOTCH   GARDENER 

other,  somewhat  without  the  bounds  of  the  parliament- 
ary, happened  to  differ  about  the  position  of  a  seat  in 
the  garden.  The  discussion,  as  was  usual  when  these 
two  were  at  it,  soon  waxed  tolerably  insulting  on  both 
sides.  Every  one  accustomed  to  such  controversies 
several  times  a  day  was  quietly  enjoying  this  prize- 
fight of  somewhat  abusive  wit  —  every  one  but  Robert, 
to  whom  the  perfect  good  faith  of  the  whole  quarrel 
seemed  unquestionable,  and  who,  after  having  waited 
till  his  conscience  would  suffer  him  to  wait  no  more, 
and  till  he  expected  every  moment  that  the  disputants 
would  fall  to  blows,  cut  suddenly  in  with  tones  of 
almost  tearful  entreaty :  "  Eh,  but,  gentlemen,  I  wad  hae 
nae  mair  words  about  it!"  One  thing  was  noticeable 
about  Robert's  religion:  it  was  neither  dogmatic  nor 
sectarian.  He  never  expatiated  (at  least,  in  my  hear- 
ing) on  the  doctrines  of  his  creed,  and  he  never  con- 
demned anybody  else.  I  have  no  doubt  that  he  held  all 
Roman  Catholics,  Atheists,  and  Mahometans  as  consid- 
erably out  of  it;  I  don't  believe  he  had  any  sympathy 
for  Prelacy ;  and  the  natural  feelings  of  man  must  have 
made  him  a  little  sore  about  Free-Churchism;  but  at 
least,  he  never  talked  about  these  views,  never  grew 
controversially  noisy,  and  never  openly  aspersed  the 
belief  or  practice  of  anybody.  Now  all  this  is  not  gen- 
erally characteristic  of  Scotch  piety ;  Scotch  sects  being 
churches  militant  with  a  vengeance,  and  Scotch  believ- 
ers perpetual  crusaders  the  one  against  the  other,  and 
missionaries  the  one  to  the  other.  Perhaps  Robert's 
originally  tender  heart  was  what  made  the  difference ; 
or,  perhaps,  his  solitary  and  pleasant  labour  among 
fruits  and  flowers  had  taught  him  a  more  sunshiny 

229 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

creed  than  those  whose  work  is  among  the  tares  of 
fallen  humanity ;  and  the  soft  influences  of  the  garden 
had  entered  deep  into  his  spirit, 

"  Annihilating  all  that's  made 
To  a  green  thought  in  a  green  shade." 

But  I  could  go  on  forever  chronicling  his  golden  say- 
ings or  telling  of  his  innocent  and  living  piety.  I  had 
meant  to  tell  of  his  cottage,  with  the  German  pipe  hung 
reverently  above  the  fire,  and  the  shell  box  that  he  had 
made  for  his  son,  and  of  which  he  would  say  patheti- 
cally :  ' '  He  was  real  pleased  wi'  it  at  first,  but  I  think 
he 's  got  a  kind  o'  tired  oJ  it  now" — the  son  being  then 
a  man  of  about  forty.  But  I  will  let  all  these  pass. 
"Tis  more  significant :  he's  dead."  The  earth,  that  he 
had  digged  so  much  in  his  life,  was  dug  out  by  another 
for  himself;  and  the  flowers  that  he  had  tended  drew 
their  life  still  from  him,  but  in  a  new  and  nearer  way. 
A  bird  flew  about  the  open  grave,  as  if  it  too  wished 
to  honour  the  obsequies  of  one  who  had  so  often  quoted 
Scripture  in  favour  of  its  kind:  "Are  not  two  sparrows 
sold  for  one  farthing?  and  yet  not  one  of  them  falleth  to 
the  ground." 

Yes,  he  is  dead.  But  the  kings  did  not  rise  in  the 
place  of  death  to  greet  him  "with  taunting  proverbs" 
as  they  rose  to  greet  the  haughty  Babylonian ;  for  in  his 
life  he  was  lowly,  and  a  peacemaker  and  a  servant  of 
God. 


230 


VI.   PASTORAL 

TO  leave  home  in  early  life  is  to  be  stunned  and  quick- 
ened with  novelties ;  but  when  years  have  come, 
it  only  casts  a  more  endearing  light  upon  the  past.  As 
in  those  composite  photographs  of  Mr.  Galton's,  the  im- 
age of  each  new  sitter  brings  out  but  the  more  clearly 
the  central  features  of  the  race ;  when  once  youth  has 
flown,  each  new  impression  only  deepens  the  sense  of 
nationality  and  the  desire  of  native  places.  So  may 
some  cadet  of  Royal  Ecossais  or  the  Albany  Regiment, 
as  he  mounted  guard  about  French  citadels,  so  may 
some  officer  marching  his  company  of  the  Scots-Dutch 
among  the  polders,  have  felt  the  soft  rains  of  the  Hebri- 
des upon  his  brow,  or  started  in  the  ranks  at  the  remem- 
bered aroma  of  peat-smoke.  And  the  rivers  of  home  are 
dear  in  particular  to  all  men.  This  is  as  old  as  Naaman, 
who  was  jealous  for  Abana  and  Pharpar;  it  is  confined 
to  no  race  nor  country,  for  I  know  one  of  Scottish  blood 
but  a  child  of  Suffolk,  whose  fancy  still  lingers  about  the 
lilied  lowland  waters  of  that  shire.  But  the  streams  of 
Scotland  are  incomparable  in  themselves  —  or  I  am  only 
the  more  Scottish  to  suppose  so  —  and  their  sound  and 
colour  dwell  for  ever  in  the  memory.  How  often  and 
willingly  do  I  not  look  again  in  fancy  on  Tummel,  or 
Manor,  or  the  talking  Airdle,  or  Dee  swirling  in  its  " 

231 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

Lynn;  on  the  bright  burn  of  Kinnaird,  or  the  golden 
burn  that  pours  and  sulks  in  the  den  behind  Kingussie ! 
I  think  shame  to  leave  out  one  of  these  enchantresses, 
but  the  list  would  grow  too  long  if  I  remembered  all ; 
only  I  may  not  forget  Allan  Water,  nor  birch-wetting 
Rogie,  nor  yet  Almond ;  nor,  for  all  its  pollutions,  that 
Water  of  Leith  of  the  many  and  well-named  mills  — 
Bell's  Mills,  and  Canon  Mills,  and  Silver  Mills;  nor  Red- 
ford  Burn  of  pleasant  memories;  nor  yet,  for  all  its 
smallness,  that  nameless  trickle  that  springs  in  the  green 
bosom  of  Allermuir,  and  is  fed  from  Halkerside  with  a 
perennial  teacupful,  and  threads  the  moss  under  the 
Shearer's  Knowe,  and  makes  one  pool  there,  overhung 
by  a  rock,  where  I  loved  to  sit  and  make  bad  verses,  and 
is  then  kidnapped  in  its  infancy  by  subterranean  pipes 
for  the  service  of  the  sea-beholding  city  in  the  plain. 
From  many  points  in  the  moss  you  may  see  at  one 
glance  its  whole  course  and  that  of  all  its  tributaries ;  the 
geographer  of  this  Lilliput  may  visit  all  its  corners  with- 
out sitting  down,  and  not  yet  begin  to  be  breathed; 
Shearer's  Knowe  and  Halkerside  are  but  names  of  adja- 
cent cantons  on  a  single  shoulder  of  a  hill,  as  names  are 
squandered  (it  would  seem  to  the  inexpert,  in  superflu- 
ity) upon  these  upland  sheepwalks ;  a  bucket  would  re- 
ceive the  whole  discharge  of  the  toy  river;  it  would  take 
it  an  appreciable  time  to  fill  your  morning  bath ;  for  the 
most  part,  besides,  it  soaks  unseen  through  the  moss; 
and  yet  for  the  sake  of  auld  lang  syne,  and  the  figure  of 
a  certain  genius  loci,  I  am  condemned  to  linger  awhile 
in  fancy  by  its  shores ;  and  if  the  nymph  (who  cannot 
be  above  a  span  in  stature)  will  but  inspire  my  pen,  I 
would  gladly  carry  the  reader  along  with  me. 

232 


PASTORAL 

John  Todd,  when  I  knew  him,  was  already  "the  old- 
est herd  on  the  Pentlands,"  and  had  been  all  his  days 
faithful  to  that  curlew-scattering,  sheep-collecting  life. 
He  remembered  the  droving  days,  when  the  drove  roads, 
that  now  lie  green  and  solitary  through  the  heather,  were 
thronged  thoroughfares.  He  had  himself  often  marched 
flocks  into  England,  sleeping  on  the  hillsides  with  his 
caravan;  and  by  his  account  it  was  a  rough  business 
not  without  danger.  The  drove  roads  lay  apart  from 
habitation ;  the  drovers  met  in  the  wilderness,  as  to-day 
the  deep-sea  fishers  meet  off  the  banks  in  the  solitude 
of  the  Atlantic ;  and  in  the  one  as  in  the  other  case  rough 
habits  and  fist-law  were  the  rule.  Crimes  were  com- 
mitted, sheep  filched,  and  drovers  robbed  and  beaten; 
most  of  which  offences  had  a  moorland  burial  and  were 
never  heard  of  in  the  courts  of  justice.  John,  in  those 
days,  was  at  least  once  attacked,  —  by  two  men  after 
his  watch,  —  and  at  least  once,  betrayed  by  his  habitual 
anger,  fell  under  the  danger  of  the  law  and  was  clapped 
into  some  rustic  prison-house,  the  doors  of  which  he 
burst  in  the  night  and  was  no  more  heard  of  in  that 
quarter.  When  I  knew  him,  his  life  had  fallen  in  quieter 
places,  and  he  had  no  cares  beyond  the  dulness  of  his 
dogs  and  the  inroads  of  pedestrians  from  town.  But 
for  a  man  of  his  propensity  to  wrath  these  were  enough ; 
he  knew  neither  rest  nor  peace,  except  by  snatches ;  in 
the  gray  of  the  summer  morning,  and  already  from  far 
up  the  hill,  he  would  wake  the  "  toun  "  with  the  sound 
of  his  shoutings ;  and  in  the  lambing  time,  his  cries  were 
not  yet  silenced  late  at  night.  This  wrathful  voice  of  a 
man  unseen  might  be  said  to  haunt  that  quarter  of  the 
Pentlands,  an  audible  bogie ;  and  no  doubt  it  added  to 

233 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

the  fear  in  which  men  stood  of  John  a  touch  of  some- 
thing legendary.  For  my  own  part,  he  was  at  first  my 
enemy,  and  I,  in  my  character  of  a  rambling  boy,  his 
natural  abhorrence.  It  was  long  before  I  saw  him  near 
at  hand,  knowing  him  only  by  some  sudden  blast  of 
bellowing  from  far  above,  bidding  me  ' '  c' way  oot  amang 
the  sheep."  The  quietest  recesses  of  the  hill  harboured 
this  ogre;  I  skulked  in  my  favourite  wilderness  like  a 
Cameronian  of  the  Killing  Time,  and  John  Todd  was 
my  Claverhouse,  and  his  dogs  my  questing  dragoons. 
Little  by  little  we  dropped  into  civilities ;  his  hail  at  sight 
of  me  began  to  have  less  of  the  ring  of  a  war-slogan ; 
soon,  we  never  met  but  he  produced  his  snuff-box, 
which  was  with  him,  like  the  calumet  with  the  Red 
Indian,  a  part  of  the  heraldry  of  peace;  and  at  length,  in 
the  ripeness  of  time,  we  grew  to  be  a  pair  of  friends,  and 
when  I  lived  alone  in  these  parts  in  the  winter,  it  was 
a  settled  thing  for  John  to  "give  me  a  cry"  over  the 
garden  wall  as  he  set  forth  upon  his  evening  round,  and 
for  me  to  overtake  and  bear  him  company. 

That  dread  voice  of  his  that  shook  the  hills  when  he 
was  angry,  fell  in  ordinary  talk  very  pleasantly  upon  the 
ear,  with  a  kind  of  honied,  friendly  whine,  not  far  off 
singing,  that  was  eminently  Scottish.  He  laughed  not 
very  often,  and  when  he  did,  with  a  sudden,  loud  haw- 
haw,  hearty  but  somehow  joyless,  like  an  echo  from  a 
rock.  His  face  was  permanently  set  and  coloured ;  ruddy 
and  stiff  with  weathering;  more  like  a  picture  than  a 
face ;  yet  with  a  certain  strain  and  a  threat  of  latent  an- 
ger in  the  expression,  like  that  of  a  man  trained  too  fine 
and  harassed  with  perpetual  vigilance.  He  spoke  in 
the  richest  dialect  of  Scotch  I  ever  heard ;  the  words  in 

214 


PASTORAL 

themselves  were  a  pleasure  and  often  a  surprise  to  me, 
so  that  I  often  came  back  from  one  of  our  patrols  with 
new  acquisitions;  and  this  vocabulary  he  would  handle 
like  a  master,  stalking  a  little  before  me,  "beard  on 
shoulder,"  the  plaid  hanging  loosely  about  him,  the  yel- 
low staff  clapped  under  his  arm,  and  guiding  me  uphill 
by  that  devious,  tactical  ascent  which  seems  peculiar  to 
men  of  his  trade.  I  might  count  him  with  the  best 
talkers ;  only  that  talking  Scotch  and  talking  English 
seem  incomparable  acts.  He  touched  on  nothing  at 
least,  but  he  adorned  it;  when  he  narrated,  the  scene 
was  before  you ;  when  he  spoke  (as  he  did  mostly)  of 
his  own  antique  business,  the  thing  took  on  a  colour  of 
romance  and  curiosity  that  was  surprising.  The  clans 
of  sheep  with  their  particular  territories  on  the  hill,  and 
how,  in  the  yearly  killings  and  purchases,  each  must  be 
proportionally  thinned  and  strengthened ;  the  midnight 
busyness  of  animals,  the  signs  of  the  weather,  the  cares 
of  the  snowy  season,  the  exquisite  stupidity  of  sheep, 
the  exquisite  cunning  of  dogs :  all  these  he  could  pre- 
sent so  humanly,  and  with  so  much  old  experience  and 
living  gusto,  that  weariness  was  excluded.  And  in 
the  midst  he  would  suddenly  straighten  his  bowed  back, 
the  stick  would  fly  abroad  in  demonstration,  and  the 
sharp  thunder  of  his  voice  roll  out  a  long  itinerary  for 
the  dogs,  so  that  you  saw  at  last  the  use  of  that  great 
wealth  of  names  for  every  knowe  and  howe  upon  the 
hillside ;  and  the  dogs,  having  hearkened  with  lowered 
tails  and  raised  faces,  would  run  up  their  flags  again  to 
the  masthead  and  spread  themselves  upon  the  indicated 
circuit.  It  used  to  fill  me  with  wonder  how  they  could 
follow  and  retain  so  long  a  story.     But  John  denied 

235 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

these  creatures  all  intelligence ;  they  were  the  constant 
butt  of  his  passion  and  contempt;  it  was  just  possible 
to  work  with  the  like  of  them,  he  said, —  not  more  than 
possible.  And  then  he  would  expand  upon  the  subject 
of  the  really  good  dogs  that  he  had  known,  and  the  one 
really  good  dog  that  he  had  himself  possessed.  He  had 
been  offered  forty  pounds  for  it ;  but  a  good  collie  was 
worth  more  than  that,  more  than  anything,  to  a  "herd  " ; 
he  did  the  herd's  work  for  him.  "As  for  the  like  of 
them ! "  he  would  cry,  and  scornfully  indicate  the  scour- 
ing tails  of  his  assistants. 

Once — I  translate  John's  Lallan,  for  I  cannot  do  it  jus- 
tice, being  born  Britannis  in  montibus,  indeed,  but  alas ! 
inerudito  sceculo  —  once,  in  the  days  of  his  good  dog, 
he  had  bought  some  sheep  in  Edinburgh,  and  on  the 
way  out,  the  road  being  crowded,  two  were  lost.  This 
was  a  reproach  to  John,  and  a  slur  upon  the  dog;  and 
both  were  alive  to  their  misfortune.  Word  came,  after 
some  days,  that  a  farmer  about  Braid  had  found  a  pair 
of  sheep ;  and  thither  went  John  and  the  dog  to  ask  for 
restitution.  But  the  farmer  was  a  hard  man  and  stood 
upon  his  rights.  "  How  were  they  marked  ?  "  he  asked ; 
and  since  John  had  bought  right  and  left  from  many 
sellers  and  had  no  notion  of  the  marks — "Very  well," 
said  the  farmer,  "  then  it's  only  right  that  I  should  keep 
them — "Well,"  said  John,  "it's  a  fact  that  I  cannae 
tell  the  sheep ;  but  if  my  dog  can,  will  ye  let  me  have 
them  ?  "  The  farmer  was  honest  as  well  as  hard,  and 
besides  I  daresay  he  had  little  fear  of  the  ordeal ;  so  he 
had  all  the  sheep  upon  his  farm  into  one  large  park,  and 
turned  John's  dog  into  their  midst.  The  hairy  man  of 
business  knew  his  errand  well;  he  knew  that  John  and 

236 


PASTORAL 

he  had  bought  two  sheep  and  (to  their  shame)  lost  them 
about  Boroughmuirhead ;  he  knew  besides  (the  Lord 
knows  how,  unless  by  listening)  that  they  were  come 
to  Braid  for  their  recovery ;  and  without  pause  or  blun- 
der singled  out,  first  one  and  then  another,  the  two 
waifs.  It  was  that  afternoon  the  forty  pounds  were  of- 
fered and  refused.  And  the  shepherd  and  his  dog  — 
what  do  I  say  ?  the  true  shepherd  and  his  man  —  set 
off  together  by  Fairmilehead  in  jocund  humour,  and 
"smiled  to  ither"  all  the  way  home,  with  the  two  re- 
covered  ones  before  them.  So  far,  so  good ;  but  intelli- 
gence may  be  abused.  The  dog,  as  he  is  by  little  man's 
inferior  in  mind,  is  only  by  little  his  superior  in  virtue ; 
and  John  had  another  collie  tale  of  quite  a  different  com- 
plexion. At  the  foot  of  the  moss  behind  Kirk  Yetton 
(Caer  Ketton,  wise  men  say)  there  is  a  scrog  of  low 
wood  and  a  pool  with  a  dam  for  washing  sheep.  John 
was  one  day  lying  under  a  bush  in  the  scrog,  when  he 
was  aware  of  a  collie  on  the  far  hillside  skulking  down 
through  the  deepest  of  the  heather  with  obtrusive 
stealth.  He  knew  the  dog ;  knew  him  for  a  clever,  rising 
practitioner  from  quite  a  distant  farm ;  one  whom  per- 
haps he  had  coveted  as  he  saw  him  masterfully  steer- 
ing flocks  to  market.  But  what  did  the  practitioner  so 
far  from  home  ?  and  why  this  guilty  and  secret  man- 
oeuvring towards  the  pool  ?  —  for  it  was  towards  the  pool 
that  he  was  heading.  John  lay  the  closer  under  his 
bush,  and  presently  saw  the  dog  come  forth  upon  the 
margin,  look  all  about  to  see  if  he  were  anywhere  ob- 
served, plunge  in  and  repeatedly  wash  himself  over  head 
and  ears,  and  then  (but  now  openly  and  with  tail  in  air) 
strike  homeward  over  the  hills.     That  same  night  word 

237 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

was  sent  his  master,  and  the  rising  practitioner,  shaken 
up  from  where  he  lay,  all  innocence  before  the  fire,  was 
had  out  to  a  dykeside  and  promptly  shot;  for  alas!  he 
was  that  foulest  of  criminals  under  trust,  a  sheep-eater; 
and  it  was  from  the  maculation  of  sheep's  blood  that  he 
had  come  so  far  to  cleanse  himself  in  the  pool  behind 
Kirk  Yetton. 

A  trade  that  touches  nature,  one  that  lies  at  the  foun- 
dations of  life,  in  which  we  have  all  had  ancestors  em- 
ployed, so  that  on  a  hint  of  it  ancestral  memories  revive, 
lends  itself  to  literary  use,  vocal  or  written.  The  for- 
tune of  a  tale  lies  not  alone  in  the  skill  of  him  that  writes, 
but  as  much,  perhaps,  in  the  inherited  experience  of 
him  who  reads ;  and  when  I  hear  with  a  particular  thrill 
of  things  that  I  have  never  done  or  seen,  it  is  one  of 
that  innumerable  army  of  my  ancestors  rejoicing  in  past 
deeds.  Thus  novels  begin  to  touch  not  the  fine  dilet- 
tanti but  the  gross  mass  of  mankind,  when  they  leave 
off  to  speak  of  parlours  and  shades  of  manner  and  still- 
born niceties  of  motive,  and  begin  to  deal  with  fighting, 
sailoring,  adventure,  death  or  child-birth ;  and  thus  an- 
cient out-door  crafts  and  occupations,  whether  Mr.  Hardy 
wields  the  shepherd's  crook  or  Count  Tolstoi  swings 
the  scythe,  lift  romance  into  a  near  neighbourhood  with 
epic.  These  aged  things  have  on  them  the  dew  of 
man's  morning;  they  lie  near,  not  so  much  to  us,  the 
semi-artificial  flowerets,  as  to  the  trunk  and  aboriginal 
taproot  of  the  race.  A  thousand  interests  spring  up  in 
the  process  of  the  ages,  and  a  thousand  perish ;  that  is 
now  an  eccentricity  or  a  lost  art  which  was  once  the 
fashion  of  an  empire ;  and  those  only  are  perennial  mat- 
ters that  rouse  us  to-day,  and  that  roused  men  in  all 

238 


PASTORAL 

epochs  of  the  past.  There  is  a  certain  critic,  not  indeed 
of  execution  but  of  matter,  whom  I  dare  be  known  to  set 
before  the  best :  a  certain  low-browed,  hairy  gentleman, 
at  first  a  percher  in  the  fork  of  trees,  next  (as  they  re- 
late) a  dweller  in  caves,  and  whom  I  think  I  see  squat- 
ting in  cave-mouths,  of  a  pleasant  afternoon,  to  munch 
his  berries  —  his  wife,  that  accomplished  lady,  squat- 
ting by  his  side :  his  name  I  never  heard,  but  he  is  often 
described  as  Probably  Arboreal,  which  may  serve  for 
recognition.  Each  has  his  own  tree  of  ancestors,  but 
at  the  top  of  all  sits  Probably  Arboreal ;  in  all  our  veins 
there  run  some  minims  of  his  old,  wild,  tree-top  blood ; 
our  civilised  nerves  still  tingle  with  his  rude  terrors  and 
pleasures;  and  to  that  which  would  have  moved  our 
common  ancestor,  all  must  obediently  thrill. 

We  have  not  so  far  to  climb  to  come  to  shepherds ; 
and  it  may  be  I  had  one  for  an  ascendant  who  has 
largely  moulded  me.  But  yet  I  think  I  owe  my  taste 
for  that  hillside  business  rather  to  the  art  and  interest  of 
John  Todd.  He  it  was  that  made  it  live  for  me,  as  the 
artist  can  make  all  things  live.  It  was  through  him  the 
simple  strategy  of  massing  sheep  upon  a  snowy  even- 
ing, with  its  attendant  scampering  of  earnest,  shaggy 
aides-de-camp,  was  an  affair  that  I  never  wearied  of 
seeing,  and  that  I  never  weary  of  recalling  to  mind :  the 
shadow  of  the  night  darkening  on  the  hills,  inscrutable 
black  blots  of  snow  shower  moving  here  and  there  like 
night  already  come,  huddles  of  yellow  sheep  and  dar* 
ings  of  black  dogs  upon  the  snow,  a  bitter  air  that  took 
you  by  the  throat,  unearthly  harpings  of  the  wind  along 
the  moors ;  and  for  centre  piece  to  all  these  features  and 
influences,  John  winding  up  the  brae,  keeping  his  cap- 

239 


MEMORIES   AND    PORTRAITS 

tain's  eye  upon  all  sides,  and  breaking,  ever  and  again, 
into  a  spasm  of  bellowing  that  seemed  to  make  the 
evening  bleaker.  It  is  thus  that  I  still  see  him  in  my 
mind's  eye,  perched  on  a  hump  of  the  declivity  not  far 
from  Halkerside,  his  staff  in  airy  flourish,  his  great  voice 
taking  hold  upon  the  hills  and  echoing  terror  to  the 
lowlands;  I,  meanwhile,  standing  somewhat  back,  until 
the  fit  should  be  over,  and,  with  a  pinch  of  snuff,  my 
friend  relapse  into  his  easy,  even  conversation. 


240 


VII.   THE  MANSE 

I  HAVE  named,  among  many  rivers  that  make  music 
in  my  memory,  that  dirty  Water  of  Leith.  Often 
and  often  I  desire  to  look  upon  it  again ;  and  the  choice 
of  a  point  of  view  is  easy  to  me.  It  should  be  at  a  cer- 
tain water-door,  embowered  in  shrubbery.  The  river 
is  there  dammed  back  for  the  service  of  the  flour-mill 
just  below,  so  that  it  lies  deep  and  darkling,  and  the 
sand  slopes  into  brown  obscurity  with  a  glint  of  gold ; 
and  it  has  but  newly  been  recruited  by  the  borrowings 
of  the  snuff-mill  just  above,  and  these,  tumbling  merrily 
in,  shake  the  pool  to  its  black  heart,  fill  it  with  drowsy 
eddies,  and  set  the  curded  froth  of  many  other  mills 
solemnly  steering  to  and  fro  upon  the  surface.  Or  so  it 
was  when  I  was  young;  for  change,  and  the  masons, 
and  the  pruning-knife,  have  been  busy ;  and  if  I  could 
hope  to  repeat  a  cherished  experience,  it  must  be  on 
many  and  impossible  conditions.  I  must  choose,  as 
well  as  the  point  of  view,  a  certain  moment  in  my 
growth,  so  that  the  scale  may  be  exaggerated,  and  the 
trees  on  the  steep  opposite  side  may  seem  to  climb  to 
heaven,  and  the  sand  by  the  water-door,  where  I  am 
standing,  seem  as  low  as  Styx.  And  I  must  choose  the 
season  also,  so  that  the  valley  may  be  brimmed  like  a 

241 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

cup  with  sunshine  and  the  songs  of  birds ;  —  and  the 
year  of  grace,  so  that  when  I  turn  to  leave  the  riverside 
I  may  find  the  old  manse  and  its  inhabitants  unchanged. 

It  was  a  place  in  that  time  like  no  other:  the  garden 
cut  into  provinces  by  a  great  hedge  of  beech,  and  over- 
looked by  the  church  and  the  terrace  of  the  churchyard, 
where  the  tombstones  were  thick,  and  after  nightfall 
"spunkies"  might  be  seen  to  dance,  at  least  by  chil- 
dren ;  flower-plots  lying  warm  in  sunshine ;  laurels  and 
the  great  yew  making  elsewhere  a  pleasing  horror  of 
shade;  the  smell  of  water  rising  from  all  round,  with  an 
added  tang  of  paper-mills;  the  sound  of  water  every- 
where, and  the  sound  of  mills  —  the  wheel  and  the  dam 
singing  their  alternate  strain ;  the  birds  on  every  bush 
and  from  every  corner  of  the  overhanging  woods  peal- 
ing out  their  notes  until  the  air  throbbed  with  them ;  and 
in  the  midst  of  this,  the  manse.  I  see  it,  by  the  stan- 
dard of  my  childish  stature,  as  a  great  and  roomy  house. 
In  truth,  it  was  not  so  large  as  I  supposed,  nor  yet  so 
convenient,  and,  standing  where  it  did,  it  is  difficult  to 
suppose  that  it  was  healthful.  Yet  a  large  family  of 
stalwart  sons  and  tall  daughters  was  housed  and  reared, 
and  came  to  man  and  womanhood  in  that  nest  of  little 
chambers ;  so  that  the  face  of  the  earth  was  peppered 
with  the  children  of  the  manse,  and  letters  with  outland- 
ish stamps  became  familiar  to  the  local  postman,  and 
the  walls  of  the  little  chambers  brightened  with  the 
wonders  of  the  East.  The  dullest  could  see  this  was  a 
house  that  had  a  pair  of  hands  in  divers  foreign  places : 
a  well-beloved  house — its  image  fondly  dwelt  on  by 
many  travellers. 

Here  lived  an  ancestor  of  mine,  who  was  a  herd  of 


THE  MANSE 

men.  I  read  him,  judging  with  older  criticism  the  re- 
port of  childish  observation,  as  a  man  of  singular  sim- 
plicity of  nature;  unemotional,  and  hating  the  display 
of  what  he  felt ;  standing  contented  on  the  old  ways ;  a 
lover  of  his  life  and  innocent  habits  to  the  end.  We 
children  admired  him :  partly  for  his  beautiful  face  and 
silver  hair,  for  none  more  than  children  are  concerned 
for  beauty  and,  above  all,  for  beauty  in  the  old ;  partly 
for  the  solemn  light  in  which  we  beheld  him  once  a 
week,  the  observed  of  all  observers,  in  the  pulpit.  But 
his  strictness  and  distance,  the  effect,  I  now  fancy,  of 
old  age,  slow  blood,  and  settled  habit,  oppressed  us 
with  a  kind  of  terror.  When  not  abroad,  he  sat  much 
alone,  writing  sermons  or  letters  to  his  scattered  family 
in  a  dark  and  cold  room  with  a  library  of  bloodless  books 
—  or  so  they  seemed  in  those  days,  although  I  have 
some  of  them  now  on  my  own  shelves  and  like  well 
enough  to  read  them ;  and  these  lonely  hours  wrapped 
him  in  the  greater  gloom  for  our  imaginations.  But  the 
study  had  a  redeeming  grace  in  many  Indian  pictures, 
gaudily  coloured  and  dear  to  young  eyes.  I  cannot  de- 
pict (for  I  have  no  such  passions  now)  the  greed  with 
which  I  beheld  them ;  and  when  I  was  once  sent  in  to 
say  a  psalm  to  my  grandfather,  I  went,  quaking  indeed 
with  fear,  but  at  the  same  time  glowing  with  hope  that, 
if  I  said  it  well,  he  might  reward  me  with  an  Indian 
picture. 

"  Thy  foot  He'll  not  let  slide,  nor  will 
He  slumber  that  thee  keeps," 

it  ran:  a  strange  conglomerate  of  the  unpronouncea- 
ble, a  sad  model  to  set  in  childhood  before  one  who  was 

243 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

himself  to  be  a  versifier,  and  a  task  in  recitation  that 
really  merited  reward.  And  I  must  suppose  the  old 
man  thought  so  too,  and  was  either  touched  or  amused 
by  the  performance ;  for  he  took  me  in  his  arms  with 
most  unwonted  tenderness,  and  kissed  me,  and  gave 
me  a  little  kindly  sermon  for  my  psalm ;  so  that,  for  that 
day,  we  were  clerk  and  parson.  I  was  struck  by  this 
reception  into  so  tender  a  surprise  that  I  forgot  my  dis- 
appointment. And  indeed  the  hope  was  one  of  those 
that  childhood  forges  for  a  pastime,  and  with  no  design 
upon  reality.  Nothing  was  more  unlikely  than  that  my 
grandfather  should  strip  himself  of  one  of  those  pictures, 
love-gifts  and  reminders  of  his  absent  sons;  nothing 
more  unlikely  than  that  he  should  bestow  it  upon  me. 
He  had  no  idea  of  spoiling  children,  leaving  all  that  to 
my  aunt ;  he  had  fared  hard  himself,  and  blubbered  un- 
der the  rod  in  the  last  century ;  and  his  ways  were  still 
Spartan  for  the  young.  The  last  word  I  heard  upon  his 
lips  was  in  this  Spartan  key.  He  had  over-walked  in 
the  teeth  of  an  east  wind,  and  was  now  near  the  end  of 
his  many  days.  He  sat  by  the  dining-room  fire,  with 
his  white  hair,  pale  face  and  bloodshot  eyes,  a  some- 
what awful  figure ;  and  my  aunt  had  given  him  a  dose 
of  our  good  old  Scotch  medicine,  Dr.  Gregory's  pow- 
der. Now  that  remedy,  as  the  work  of  a  near  kinsman 
of  Rob  Roy  himself,  may  have  a  savour  of  romance  for 
the  imagination ;  but  it  comes  uncouthly  to  the  palate. 
The  old  gentleman  had  taken  it  with  a  wry  face;  and 
that  being  accomplished,  sat  with  perfect  simplicity,  like 
a  child's,  munching  a  ''barley-sugar  kiss."  But  when 
my  aunt,  having  the  canister  open  in  her  hands,  pro- 
posed to  let  me  share  in  the  sweets,  he  interfered  at 

244 


THE   MANSE 

once.  I  had  had  no  Gregory;  then  I  should  have  no 
barley-sugar  kiss :  so  he  decided  with  a  touch  of  irrita- 
tion. And  just  then  the  phaeton  coming  opportunely  to 
the  kitchen  door  —  for  such  was  our  unlordly  fashion  — 
I  was  taken  for  the  last  time  from  the  presence  of  my 
grandfather. 

Now  I  often  wonder  what  I  have  inherited  from  this 
old  minister.  I  must  suppose,  indeed,  that  he  was  fond 
of  preaching  sermons,  and  so  am  I,  though  I  never 
heard  it  maintained  that  either  of  us  loved  to  hear  them. 
He  sought  health  in  his  youth  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  and 
I  have  sought  it  in  both  hemispheres;  but  whereas  he 
found  and  kept  it,  I  am  still  on  the  quest.  He  was  a 
great  lover  of  Shakespeare,  whom  he  read  aloud,  I 
have  been  told,  with  taste;  well,  I  love  my  Shakespeare 
also,  and  am  persuaded  I  can  read  him  well,  though  I 
own  I  never  have  been  told  so.  He  made  embroidery, 
designing  his  own  patterns ;  and  in  that  kind  of  work 
I  never  made  anything  but  a  kettle-holder  in  Berlin 
wool,  and  an  odd  garter  of  knitting,  which  was  as 
black  as  the  chimney  before  I  had  done  with  it.  He 
loved  port,  and  nuts,  and  porter;  and  so  do  I,  but  they 
agreed  better  with  my  grandfather,  which  seems  to  me 
a  breach  of  contract.  He  had  chalk-stones  in  his 
fingers;  and  these,  in  good  time,  I  may  possibly  in- 
herit, but  I  would  much  rather  have  inherited  his  noble 
presence.  Try  as  I  please,  I  cannot  join  myself  on  with 
the  reverend  doctor;  and  all  the  while,  no  doubt,  and 
even  as  I  write  the  phrase,  he  moves  in  my  blood,  and 
whispers  words  to  me,  and  sits  efficient  in  the  very 
knot  and  centre  of  my  being.  In  his  garden,  as  I  played 
there,  I  learned  the  love  of  mills — or  had  I  an  ancestor 

245 


MEMORIES   AND    PORTRAITS 

a  miller? — and  a  kindness  for  the  neighbourhood  of 
graves,  as  homely  things  not  without  their  poetry  — 
or  had  I  an  ancestor  a  sexton  ?  But  what  of  the  garden 
where  he  played  himself? — for  that,  too,  was  a  scene 
of  my  education.  Some  part  of  me  played  there  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  and  ran  races  under  the  green 
avenue  at  Pilrig;  some  part  of  me  trudged  up  Leith 
Walk,  which  was  still  a  country  place,  and  sat  on  the 
High  School  benches,  and  was  thrashed,  perhaps,  by 
Dr.  Adam.  The  house  where  I  spent  my  youth  was 
not  yet  thought  upon;  but  we  made  holiday  parties 
among  the  cornfields  on  its  site,  and  ate  strawberries 
and  cream  near  by  at  a  gardener's.  All  this  I  had  for- 
gotten; only  my  grandfather  remembered  and  once 
reminded  me.  I  have  forgotten,  too,  how  we  grew 
up,  and  took  orders,  and  went  to  our  first  Ayrshire 
parish,  and  fell  in  love  with  and  married  a  daughter  of 
Burns's  Dr.  Smith — "Smith  opens  out  his  cauld  ha- 
rangues." I  have  forgotten,  but  I  was  there  all  the 
same,  and  heard  stories  of  Burns  at  first  hand. 

And  there  is  a  thing  stranger  than  all  that;  for  this 
homunculus  or  part-man  of  mine  that  walked  about 
the  eighteenth  century  with  Dr.  Balfour  in  his  youth, 
was  in  the  way  of  meeting  other  homunculos  or  part- 
men,  in  the  persons  of  my  other  ancestors.  These 
were  of  a  lower  order,  and  doubtless  we  looked  down 
upon  them  duly.  But  as  I  went  to  college  with  Dr. 
Balfour,  I  may  have  seen  the  lamp  and  oil  man  taking 
down  the  shutters  from  his  shop  beside  the  Tron; — 
we  may  have  had  a  rabbit-hutch  or  a  bookshelf  made 
for  us  by  a  certain  carpenter  in  I  know  not  what  wynd 
of  the  old,  smoky  city;  or,  upon  some  holiday  excur- 

246 


THE   MANSE 

sion,  we  may  have  looked  into  the  windows  of  a  cot- 
tage in  a  flower-garden  and  seen  a  certain  weaver  plying 
his  shuttle.  And  these  were  all  kinsmen  of  mine  upon 
the  other  side;  and  from  the  eyes  of  the  lamp  and  oil 
man  one-half  of  my  unborn  father,  and  one-quarter  of 
myself,  looked  out  upon  us  as  we  went  by  to  college. 
Nothing  of  all  this  would  cross  the  mind  of  the  young 
student,  as  he  posted  up  the  Bridges  with  trim,  stock- 
inged legs,  in  that  city  of  cocked  hats  and  good  Scotch 
still  unadulterated.  It  would  not  cross  his  mind  that 
he  should  have  a  daughter;  and  the  lamp  and  oil  man, 
just  then  beginning,  by  a  not  unnatural  metastasis,  to 
bloom  into  a  lighthouse-engineer,  should  have  a  grand- 
son ;  and  that  these  two,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  should 
wed ;  and  some  portion  of  that  student  himself  should 
survive  yet  a  year  or  two  longer  in  the  person  of  their 
child. 

But  our  ancestral  adventures  are  beyond  even  the 
arithmetic  of  fancy;  and  it  is  the  chief  recommenda- 
tion of  long  pedigrees,  that  we  can  follow  backward 
the  careers  of  our  homunculi  and  be  reminded  of  our 
antenatal  lives.  Our  conscious  years  are  but  a  moment 
in  the  history  of  the  elements  that  build  us.  Are  you  a 
bank-clerk,  and  do  you  live  at  Peckham  ?  It  was  not 
always  so.  And  though  to-day  I  am  only  a  man  of 
letters,  either  tradition  errs  or  I  was  present  when  there 
landed  at  St.  Andrews  a  French  barber-surgeon,  to  tend 
the  health  and  the  beard  of  the  great  Cardinal  Beaton , 
I  have  shaken  a  spear  in  the  Debatable  Land  and  shouted 
the  slogan  of  the  Elliots;  I  was  present  when  a  skipper, 
plying  from  Dundee,  smuggled  Jacobites  to  France  after 
the  '15;  I  was  in  a  West  India  merchant's  office,  per- 

247 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

haps  next  door  to  Bailie  Nichol  Jarvie's,  and  managed 
the  business  of  a  plantation  in  St.  Kitt's ;  I  was  with  my 
engineer-grandfather  (the  son-in-law  of  the  lamp  and 
oil  man)  when  he  sailed  north  about  Scotland  on  the 
famous  cruise  that  gave  us  the  Pirate  and  the  Lord  of 
the  Isles;  I  was  with  him,  too,  on  the  Bell  Rock,  in  the 
fog,  when  the  Smeaton  had  drifted  from  her  moorings, 
and  the  Aberdeen  men,  pick  in  hand,  had  seized  upon 
the  only  boats,  and  he  must  stoop  and  lap  sea-water 
before  his  tongue  could  utter  audible  words ;  and  once 
more  with  him  when  the  Bell  Rock  beacon  took  a 
"thrawe,"  and  his  workmen  fled  into  the  tower,  then 
nearly  finished,  and  he  sat  unmoved  reading  in  his  Bible 
—  or  affecting  to  read  —  till  one  after  another  slunk  back 
with  confusion  of  countenance  to  their  engineer.  Yes, 
parts  of  me  have  seen  life,  and  met  adventures,  and 
sometimes  met  them  well.  And  away  in  the  still 
cloudier  past,  the  threads  that  make  me  up  can  be 
traced  by  fancy  into  the  bosoms  of  thousands  and  mil- 
lions of  ascendants :  Picts  who  rallied  round  Macbeth 
and  the  old  (and  highly  preferable)  system  of  descent 
by  females,  fleers  from  before  the  legions  of  Agricola, 
marchers  in  Pannonian  morasses,  star-gazers  on  Chal- 
daean  plateaus ;  and,  furthest  of  all,  what  face  is  this  that 
fancy  can  see  peering  through  the  disparted  branches  ? 
What  sleeper  in  green  tree-tops,  what  muncher  of 
nuts,  concludes  my  pedigree  ?  Probably  arboreal  in  his 
habits.  .  .  . 

And  I  know  not  which  is  the  more  strange,  that  I 
should  carry  about  with  me  some  fibres  of  my  minister- 
grandfather;  or  that  in  him,  as  he  sat  in  his  cool  study, 
grave,  reverend,  contented  gentleman,  there  was  an  ab- 

248 


THE   MANSE 

original  frisking  of  the  blood  that  was  not  his ;  tree-top 
memories,  like  undeveloped  negatives,  lay  dormant  in 
his  mind ;  tree-top  instincts  awoke  and  were  trod  down ; 
and  Probably  Arboreal  (scarce  to  be  distinguished  from 
a  monkey)  gambolled  and  chattered  in  the  brain  of  the 
old  divine. 


249 


VIII.    MEMOIRS  OF  AN  ISLET 

THOSE  who  try  to  be  artists  use,  time  after  time, 
the  matter  of  their  recollections,  setting  and  re- 
setting little  coloured  memories  of  men  and  scenes, 
rigging  up  ( it  may  be )  some  especial  friend  in  the  attire 
of  a  buccaneer,  and  decreeing  armies  to  manoeuvre,  or 
murder  to  be  done,  on  the  playground  of  their  youth. 
But  the  memories  are  a  fairy  gift  which  cannot  be  worn 
out  in  using.  After  a  dozen  services  in  various  tales, 
the  little  sunbright  pictures  of  the  past  still  shine  in  the 
mind's  eye  with  not  a  lineament  defaced,  not  a  tint  im- 
paired. Gliick  und  Unglilck  wird  Gesang,  if  Goethe 
pleases ;  yet  only  by  endless  avatars,  the  original  re- 
embodying  after  each.  So  that  a  writer,  in  time,  begins 
to  wonder  at  the  perdurable  life  of  these  impressions ; 
begins,  perhaps,  to  fancy  that  he  wrongs  them  when 
he  weaves  them  in  with  fiction ;  and  looking  back  on 
them  with  ever-growing  kindness,  puts  them  at  last, 
substantive  jewels,  in  a  setting  of  their  own. 

One  or  two  of  these  pleasant  spectres  I  think  I  have 
laid.  I  used  one  but  the  other  day:  a  little  eyot  of 
dense,  freshwater  sand,  where  I  once  waded  deep  in 
butterburrs,  delighting  to  hear  the  song  of  the  river  on 
both  sides,  and  to  tell  myself  that  I  was  indeed  and  at 

250 


MEMOIRS  OF  AN   ISLET 

last  upon  an  island.  Two  of  my  puppets  lay  there  a 
summer's  day,  hearkening  to  the  shearers  at  work  in 
riverside  fields  and  to  the  drums  of  the  gray  old  garri- 
son upon  the  neighbouring  hill.  And  this  was,  I  think, 
done  rightly :  the  place  was  rightly  peopled  —  and  now 
belongs  not  to  me  but  to  my  puppets  —  for  a  time  at 
least.  In  time,  perhaps,  the  puppets  will  grow  faint; 
the  original  memory  swim  up  instant  as  ever;  and  I 
shall  once  more  lie  in  bed,  and  see  the  little  sandy  isle 
in  Allan  Water  as  it  is  in  nature,  and  the  child  (that 
once  was  me)  wading  there  in  butterburrs;  and  won- 
der at  the  instancy  and  virgin  freshness  of  that  memory ; 
and  be  pricked  again,  in  season  and  out  of  season,  by 
the  desire  to  weave  it  into  art. 

There  is  another  isle  in  my  collection,  the  memory  of 
which  besieges  me.  I  put  a  whole  family  there,  in  one 
of  my  tales ;  and  later  on,  threw  upon  its  shores,  and 
condemned  to  several  days  of  rain  and  shellfish  on  its 
tumbled  boulders,  the  hero  of  another.  The  ink  is  not 
yet  faded;  the  sound  of  the  sentences  is  still  in  my 
mind's  ear;  and  I  am  under  a  spell  to  write  of  that  island 
again. 


The  little  isle  of  Earraid  lies  close  in  to  the  south-west 
corner  of  the  Ross  of  Mull :  the  sound  of  Iona  on  one 
side,  across  which  you  may  see  the  isle  and  church  of 
Columba;  the  open  sea  to  the  other,  where  you  shall 
be  able  to  mark,  on  a  clear,  surfy  day,  the  breakers  run- 
ning white  on  many  sunken  rocks.  I  first  saw  it,  or 
first  remember  seeing  it,  framed  in  the  round  bull's-eye 
of  a  cabin  port,  the  sea  lying  smooth  along  its  shores 

251 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

like  the  waters  of  a  lake,  the  colourless,  clear  light  of 
the  early  morning  making  plain  its  heathery  and  rocky 
hummocks.  There  stood  upon  it,  in  these  days,  a  sin- 
gle rude  house  of  uncemented  stones,  approached  by  a 
pier  of  wreckwood.  It  must  have  been  very  early,  for 
it  was  then  summer,  and  in  summer,  in  that  latitude, 
day  scarcely  withdraws;  but  even  at  that  hour  the 
house  was  making  a  sweet  smoke  of  peats  which  came 
to  me  over  the  bay,  and  the  bare-legged  daughters  of 
the  cotter  were  wading  by  the  pier.  The  same  day  we 
visited  the  shores  of  the  isle  in  the  ship's  boats ;  rowed 
deep  into  Fiddler's  Hole,  sounding  as  we  went,  and  hav- 
ing taken  stock  of  all  possible  accommodations,  pitched 
on  the  northern  inlet  as  the  scene  of  operations.  For  it 
was  no  accident  that  had  brought  the  lighthouse  steamer 
to  anchor  in  the  Bay  of  Earraid.  Fifteen  miles  away  to 
seaward,  a  certain  black  rock  stood  environed  by  the 
Atlantic  rollers,  the  outpost  of  the  Torran  reefs.  Here 
was  a  tower  to  be  built,  and  a  star  lighted,  for  the  con- 
duct of  seamen.  But  as  the  rock  was  small,  and  hard 
of  access,  and  far  from  land,  the  work  would  be  one  of 
years ;  and  my  father  was  now  looking  for  a  shore  sta- 
tion, where  the  stones  might  be  quarried  and  dressed, 
the  men  live,  and  the  tender,  with  some  degree  of  safety, 
lie  at  anchor. 

I  saw  Earraid  next  from  the  stern  thwart  of  an  Iona 
lugger,  Sam  Bough  and  I  sitting  there  cheek  by  jowl, 
with  our  feet  upon  our  baggage,  in  a  beautiful,  clear, 
northern  summer  eve.  And  behold !  there  was  now  a 
pier  of  stone,  there  were  rows  of  sheds,  railways,  trav- 
elling-cranes, a  street  of  cottages,  an  iron  house  for  the 
resident  engineer,  wooden  bothies  for  the  men,  a  stage 

252 


MEMOIRS  OF  AN   ISLET 

where  the  courses  of  the  tower  were  put  together  ex- 
perimentally, and  behind  the  settlement  a  great  gash  in 
the  hillside  where  granite  was  quarried.  In  the  bay, 
the  steamer  lay  at  her  moorings.  All  day  long  there 
hung  about  the  place  the  music  of  chinking  tools;  and 
even  in  the  dead  of  night,  the  watchman  carried  his 
lantern  to  and  fro  in  the  dark  settlement,  and  could  light 
the  pipe  of  any  midnight  muser.  It  was,  above  all, 
strange  to  see  Earraid  on  the  Sunday,  when  the  sound 
of  the  tools  ceased  and  there  fell  a  crystal  quiet.  All 
about  the  green  compound  men  would  be  sauntering  in 
their  Sunday's  best,  walking  with  those  lax  joints  of  the 
reposing  toiler,  thoughtfully  smoking,  talking  small,  as 
if  in  honour  of  the  stillness,  or  hearkening  to  the  wail- 
ing of  the  gulls.  And  it  was  strange  to  see  our  Sabbath 
services,  held,  as  they  were,  in  one  of  the  bothies,  with 
Mr.  Brebner  reading  at  a  table,  and  the  congregation 
perched  about  in  the  double  tier  of  sleeping  bunks ;  and 
to  hear  the  singing  of  the  psalms,  "the  chapters,"  the 
inevitable  Spurgeon's  sermon,  and  the  old,  eloquent 
lighthouse  prayer. 

In  fine  weather,  when  by  the  spy-glass  on  the  hill 
the  sea  was  observed  to  run  low  upon  the  reef,  there 
would  be  a  sound  of  preparation  in  the  very  early  morn- 
ing; and  before  the  sun  had  risen  from  behind  Ben 
More,  the  tender  would  steam  out  of  the  bay.  Over 
fifteen  sea-miles  of  the  great  blue  Atlantic  rollers  she 
ploughed  her  way,  trailing  at  her  tail  a  brace  of  wallow- 
ing stone-lighters.  The  open  ocean  widened  upon  either 
board,  and  the  hills  of  the  mainland  began  to  go  down 
on  the  horizon,  before  she  came  to  her  unhomely  des- 
tination, and  lay-to  at  last  where  the  rock  clapped  its 

253 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

black  head  above  the  swell,  with  the  tall  iron  barrack 
on  its  spider  legs,  and  the  truncated  tower,  and  the 
cranes  waving  their  arms,  and  the  smoke  of  the  engine- 
fire  rising  in  the  mid-sea.  An  ugly  reef  is  this  of  the 
Dhu  Heartach ;  no  pleasant  assemblage  of  shelves,  and 
pools,  and  creeks,  about  which  a  child  might  play  for  a 
whole  summer  without  weariness,  like  the  Bell  Rock 
or  the  Skerryvore,  but  one  oval  nodule  of  black-trap, 
sparsely  bedabbled  with  an  inconspicuous  fucus,  and 
alive  in  every  crevice  with  a  dingy  insect  between  a 
slater  and  a  bug.  No  other  life  was  there  but  that  of 
sea-birds,  and  of  the  sea  itself,  that  here  ran  like  a  mill- 
race,  and  growled  about  the  outer  reef  for  ever,  and 
ever  and  again,  in  the  calmest  weather,  roared  and 
spouted  on  the  rock  itself.  Times  were  different  upon 
Dhu  Heartach  when  it  blew,  and  the  night  fell  dark,  and 
the  neighbour  lights  of  Skerryvore  and  Rhu-val  were 
quenched  in  fog,  and  the  men  sat  prisoned  high  up  in 
their  iron  drum,  that  then  resounded  with  the  lashing  of 
the  sprays.  Fear  sat  with  them  in  their  sea-beleaguered 
dwelling;  and  the  colour  changed  in  anxious  faces  when 
some  greater  billow  struck  the  barrack,  and  its  pillars 
quivered  and  sprang  under  the  blow.  It  was  then  that 
the  foreman  builder,  Mr.  Goodwillie,  whom  I  see  before 
me  still  in  his  rock-habit  of  undecipherable  rags,  would 
get  his  fiddle  down  and  strike  up  human  minstrelsy 
amid  the  music  of  the  storm.  But  it  was  in  sunshine 
only  that  I  saw  Dhu-Heartach ;  and  it  was  in  sunshine, 
or  the  yet  lovelier  summer  afterglow,  that  the  steamer 
would  return  to  Earraid,  ploughing  an  enchanted  sea; 
the  obedient  lighters,  relieved  of  their  deck  cargo,  rid- 
ing in  her  wake  more  quietly ;  and  the  steersman  upon 

254 


MEMOIRS  OF  AN   ISLET 


each,  as  she  rose  on  the  long  swell,  standing  tall  and 
dark  against  the  shining  west. 


But  it  was  in  Earraid  itself  that  I  delighted  chiefly. 
The  lighthouse  settlement  scarce  encroached  beyond  its 
fences ;  over  the  top  of  the  first  brae  the  ground  was  all 
virgin,  the  world  all  shut  out,  the  face  of  things  un- 
changed by  any  of  man's  doings.  Here  was  no  living 
presence,  save  for  the  limpets  on  the  rocks,  for  some  old, 
gray,  rain-beaten  ram  that  I  might  rouse  out  of  a  ferny 
den  betwixt  two  boulders,  or  for  the  haunting  and  the 
piping  of  the  gulls.  It  was  older  than  man ;  it  was  found 
so  by  incoming  Celts,  and  seafaring  Norsemen,  and  Co- 
lumba's  priests.  The  earthy  savour  of  the  bog  plants, 
the  rude  disorder  of  the  boulders,  the  inimitable  seaside 
brightness  of  the  air,  the  brine  and  the  iodine,  the  lap  of 
the  billows  among  the  weedy  reefs,  the  sudden  spring- 
ing up  of  a  great  run  of  dashing  surf  along  the  sea-front 
of  the  isle,  all  that  I  saw  and  felt  my  predecessors  must 
have  seen  and  felt  with  scarce  a  difference.  I  steeped 
myself  in  open  air  and  in  past  ages. 

"  Delightful  would  it  be  to  me  to  be  in  Uchd  Ailiun 

On  the  pinnacle  of  a  rock, 
That  I  might  often  see 

The  face  of  the  ocean ; 
That  I  might  hear  the  song  of  the  wonderful  birds, 

Source  of  happiness; 
That  1  might  hear  the  thunder  of  the  crowding  waves 

Upon  the  rocks : 
At  times  at  work  without  compulsion  — 

This  would  be  delightful; 
At  times  plucking  dulse  from  the  rocks; 

At  times  at  fishing." 

255 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

So,  about  the  next  island  of  Iona,  sang  Columba  him- 
self twelve  hundred  years  before.  And  so  might  I  have 
sung  of  Earraid. 

And  all  the  while  I  was  aware  that  this  life  of  sea- 
bathing and  sun-burning  was  for  me  but  a  holiday.  In 
that  year  cannon  were  roaring  for  days  together  on 
French  battlefields ;  and  I  would  sit  in  my  isle  (I  call  it 
mine,  after  the  use  of  lovers)  and  think  upon  the  war, 
and  the  loudness  of  these  far-away  battles,  and  the  pain 
of  the  men's  wounds,  and  the  weariness  of  their  march- 
ing. And  I  would  think  too  of  that  other  war  which  is 
as  old  as  mankind,  and  is  indeed  the  life  of  man:  the 
unsparing  war,  the  grinding  slavery  of  competition ;  the 
toil  of  seventy  years,  dear-bought  bread,  precarious  hon- 
our, the  perils  and  pitfalls,  and  the  poor  rewards.  It 
was  a  long  look  forward;  the  future  summoned  me  as 
with  trumpet  calls,  it  warned  me  back  as  with  a  voice 
of  weeping  and  beseeching;  and  I  thrilled  and  trembled 
on  the  brink  of  life,  like  a  childish  bather  on  the  beach. 

There  Was  another  young  man  on  Earraid  in  these 
days,  and  we  were  much  together,  bathing,  clambering 
on  the  boulders,  trying  to  sail  a  boat  and  spinning  round 
instead  in  the  oily  whirlpools  of  the  roost.  But  the  most 
part  of  the  time  we  spoke  of  the  great  uncharted  desert 
of  our  futures ;  wondering  together  what  should  there 
befall  us ;  hearing  with  surprise  the  sound  of  our  own 
voices  in  the  empty  vestibule  of  youth.  As  far,  and  as 
hard,  as  it  seemed  then  to  look  forward  to  the  grave,  so 
far  it  seems  now  to  look  backward  upon  these  emotions ; 
so  hard  to  recall  justly  that  loath  submission,  as  of  the 
sacrificial  bull,  with  which  we  stooped  our  necks  under 
the  yoke  of  destiny.     I  met  my  old  companion  but  the 

256 


MEMOIRS  OF  AN   ISLET 

other  day ;  I  cannot  tell  of  course  what  he  was  think- 
ing; but,  upon  my  part,  I  was  wondering  to  see  us  both 
so  much  at  home,  and  so  composed  and  sedentary  in 
the  world ;  and  how  much  we  had  gained,  and  how 
much  we  had  lost,  to  attain  to  that  composure;  and 
which  had  been  upon  the  whole  our  best  estate :  when 
we  sat  there  prating  sensibly  like  men  of  some  experi- 
ence, or  when  we  shared  our  timorous  and  hopeful 
counsels  in  a  western  islet. 


*57 


IX.   THOMAS  STEVENSON 

CIVIL  ENGINEER 

THE  death  of  Thomas  Stevenson  will  mean  not  very 
much  to  the  general  reader.  His  service  to  man- 
kind took  on  forms  of  which  the  public  knows  little  and 
understands  less.  He  came  seldom  to  London,  and 
then  only  as  a  task,  remaining  always  a  stranger  and  a 
convinced  provincial ;  putting  up  for  years  at  the  same 
hotel  where  his  father  had  gone  before  him ;  faithful  for 
long  to  the  same  restaurant,  the  same  church,  and  the 
same  theatre,  chosen  simply  for  propinquity;  steadfastly 
refusing  to  dine  out.  He  had  a  circle  of  his  own,  in- 
deed, at  home;  few  men  were  more  beloved  in  Edin- 
burgh, where  he  breathed  an  air  that  pleased  him ;  and 
wherever  he  went,  in  railway  carriages  or  hotel  smok- 
ing-rooms, his  strange,  humorous  vein  of  talk,  and  his 
transparent  honesty,  raised  him  up  friends  and  admirers. 
But  to  the  general  public  and  the  world  of  London, 
except  about  the  parliamentary  committee-rooms,  he 
remained  unknown.  All  the  time,  his  lights  were  in 
every  part  of  the  world,  guiding  the  mariner;  his  firm 
were  consulting  engineers  to  the  Indian,  the  New  Zea- 
land, and  the  Japanese  Lighthouse  Boards,  so  that  Ed- 
inburgh was  a  world  centre  for  that  branch  of  applied 
science;  in  Germany,  he  had  been  called  "the  Nestor 

258 


THOMAS  STEVENSON 

of  lighthouse  illumination; "  even  in  France,  where  his 
claims  were  long  denied,  he  was  at  last,  on  the  occasion 
of  the  late  Exposition,  recognised  and  medalled.  And 
to  show  by  one  instance  the  inverted  nature  of  his  repu- 
tation, comparatively  small  at  home,  yet  filling  the 
world,  a  friend  of  mine  was  this  winter  on  a  visit  to  the 
Spanish  main,  and  was  asked  by  a  Peruvian  if  he  "  knew 
Mr.  Stevenson  the  author,  because  his  works  were  much 
esteemed  in  Peru  ?  "  My  friend  supposed  the  reference 
was  to  the  writer  of  tales ;  but  the  Peruvian  had  never 
heard  of  Dr.  Jekyll ;  what  he  had  in  his  eye,  what  was 
esteemed  in  Peru,  were  the  volumes  of  the  engineer. 

Thomas  Stevenson  was  born  at  Edinburgh  in  the  year 
1818,  the  grandson  of  Thomas  Smith,  first  engineer  to 
the  Board  of  Northern  Lights,  son  of  Robert  Stevenson, 
brother  of  Alan  and  David ;  so  that  his  nephew,  David 
Alan  Stevenson,  joined  with  him  at  the  time  of  his  death 
in  the  engineership,  is  the  sixth  of  the  family  who  has 
held,  successively  or  conjointly,  that  office.  The  Bell 
Rock,  his  father's  great  triumph,  was  finished  before 
he  was  born ;  but  he  served  under  his  brother  Alan  in 
the  building  of  Skerryvore,  the  noblest  of  all  extant 
deep-sea  lights;  and,  in  conjunction  with  his  Brother 
David,  he  added  two  —  the  Chickens  and  Dhu  Heartach 
—  to  that  small  number  of  man's  extreme  outposts  in 
the  ocean.  Of  shore  lights,  the  two  brothers  last  named 
erected  no  fewer  than  twenty-seven ;  of  beacons,1  about 
twenty-five.  Many  harbours  were  successfully  carried 
out :  one,  the  harbour  of  Wick,  the  chief  disaster  of  my 

1  In  Dr.  Murray's  admirable  new  dictionary,  I  have  remarked  a  flaw 
sub  voce  Beacon.  In  its  express,  technical  sense,  a  beacon  may  be  de- 
fined as  "  a  founded,  artificial  sea-mark,  not  lighted." 

259 


MEMORIES   AND    PORTRAITS 

father's  life,  was  a  failure ;  the  sea  proved  too  strong  for 
man's  arts;  and  after  expedients  hitherto  unthought 
of,  and  on  a  scale  hyper-cyclopean,  the  work  must  be 
deserted,  and  now  stands  a  ruin  in  that  bleak,  God-for- 
saken bay,  ten  miles  from  John-o'-Groat's.  In  the  im- 
provement of  rivers  the  brothers  were  likewise  in  a  large 
way  of  practice  over  both  England  and  Scotland,  nor 
had  any  British  engineer  anything  approaching  their  ex- 
perience. 

It  was  about  this  nucleus  of  his  professional  labours 
that  all  my  father's  scientific  inquiries  and  inventions 
centred ;  these  proceeded  from,  and  acted  back  upon, 
his  daily  business.  Thus  it  was  as  a  harbour  engineer 
that  he  became  interested  in  the  propagation  and  reduc- 
tion of  waves ;  a  difficult  subject  in  regard  to  which  he 
has  left  behind  him  much  suggestive  matter  and  some 
valuable  approximate  results.  Storms  were  his  sworn 
adversaries,  and  it  was  through  the  study  of  storms  that 
he  approached  that  of  meteorology  at  large.  Many 
who  knew  him  not  otherwise,  knew  —  perhaps  have 
in  their  gardens  —  his  louvre-boarded  screen  for  instru- 
ments. But  the  great  achievement  of  his  life  was,  of 
course,  in  optics  as  applied  to  lighthouse  illumination. 
Fresnel  had  done  much ;  Fresnel  had  settled  the  fixed 
light  apparatus  on  a  principle  that  still  seems  unimprov- 
able; and  when  Thomas  Stevenson  stepped  in  and 
brought  to  a  comparable  perfection  the  revolving  light, 
a  not  unnatural  jealousy  and  much  painful  controversy 
rose  in  France.  It  had  its  hour;  and,  as  I  have  told 
already,  even  in  France  it  has  blown  by.  Had  it  not,  it 
would  have  mattered  the  less,  since  all  through  his  life 
my  father  continued  to  justify  his  claim  by  fresh  advances. 

260 


THOMAS  STEVENSON 

New  apparatus  for  lights  in  new  situations  was  contin- 
ually being  designed  with  the  same  unwearied  search 
after  perfection,  the  same  nice  ingenuity  of  means ;  and 
though  the  holophotal  revolving  light  perhaps  still  re- 
mains his  most  elegant  contrivance,  it  is  difficult  to  give 
it  the  palm  over  the  much  later  condensing  system, 
with  its  thousand  possible  modifications.  The  number 
and  the  value  of  these  improvements  entitle  their  author 
to  the  name  of  one  of  mankind's  benefactors.  In  all 
parts  of  the  world  a  safer  landfall  awaits  the  mariner. 
Two  things  must  be  said :  and,  first,  that  Thomas  Ste- 
venson was  no  mathematician.  Natural  shrewdness,  a 
sentiment  of  optical  laws,  and  a  great  intensity  of  con- 
sideration led  him  to  just  conclusions;  but  to  calculate 
the  necessary  formulae  for  the  instruments  he  had  con- 
ceived was  often  beyond  him,  and  he  must  fall  back  on 
the  help  of  others,  notably  on  that  of  his  cousin  and 
lifelong  intimate  friend,  emeritus  Professor  Swan,  of  St. 
Andrews,  and  his  later  friend,  Professor  P.  G.  Tait.  It  is 
a  curious  enough  circumstance,  and  a  great  encourage- 
ment to  others,  that  a  man  so  ill  equipped  should  have 
succeeded  in  one  of  the  most  abstract  and  arduous  walks 
of  applied  science.  The  second  remark  is  one  that 
applies  to  the  whole  family,  and  only  particularly  to 
Thomas  Stevenson  from  the  great  number  and  impor- 
tance of  his  inventions :  holding  as  the  Stevensons  did  a 
Government  appointment,  they  regarded  their  original 
work  as  something  due  already  to  the  nation,  and  none 
of  them  has  ever  taken  out  a  patent.  It  is  another  cause 
of  the  comparative  obscurity  of  the  name :  for  a  patent 
not  only  brings  in  money,  it  infallibly  spreads  reputa- 
tion; and  my  father's  instruments  enter  anonymously 

261 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

into  a  hundred  light-rooms,  and  are  passed  anonymously 
over  in  a  hundred  reports,  where  the  least  considerable 
patent  would  stand  out  and  tell  its  author's  story. 

But  the  life-work  of  Thomas  Stevenson  remains: 
what  we  have  lost,  what  we  now  rather  try  to  recall, 
is  the  friend  and  companion.  He  was  a  man  of  a  some- 
what antique  strain :  with  a  blended  sternness  and  soft- 
ness that  was  wholly  Scottish  and  at  first  somewhat 
bewildering;  with  a  profound  essential  melancholy  of 
disposition  and  (what  often  accompanies  it)  the  most 
humorous  geniality  in  company ;  shrewd  and  childish ; 
passionately  attached,  passionately  prejudiced;  a  man 
of  many  extremes,  many  faults  of  temper,  and  no  very 
stable  foothold  for  himself  among  life's  troubles.  Yet 
he  was  a  wise  adviser;  many  men,  and  these  not  incon- 
siderable, took  counsel  with  him  habitually.  "I  sat  at 
his  feet,"  writes  one  of  these,  "when  I  asked  his  advice, 
and  when  the  broad  brow  was  set  in  thought  and  the 
firm  mouth  said  his  say,  I  always  knew  that  no  man 
could  add  to  the  worth  of  the  conclusion."  He  had  ex- 
cellent taste,  though  whimsical  and  partial;  collected 
old  furniture  and  delighted  specially  in  sunflowers  long 
before  the  days  of  Mr.  Wilde ;  took  a  lasting  pleasure  in 
prints  and  pictures ;  was  a  devout  admirer  of  Thomson 
of  Duddingston  at  a  time  when  few  shared  the  taste;  and 
though  he  read  little,  was  constant  to  his  favourite  books. 
He  had  never  any  Greek;  Latin  he  happily  re-taught 
himself  after  he  had  left  school,  where  he  was  a  mere 
consistent  idler:  happily,  I  say,  for  Lactantius,  Vossius, 
and  Cardinal  Bona  were  his  chief  authors.  The  first  he 
must  have  read  for  twenty  years  uninterruptedly,  keep- 
ing it  near  him  in  his  study,  and  carrying  it  in  his  bag 

262 


THOMAS  STEVENSON 

on  journeys.  Another  old  theologian,  Brown  of  Wam- 
phray,  was  often  in  his  hands.  When  he  was  indis- 
posed, he  had  two  books,  Guy  Mannering  and  The 
Parenfs  Assistant,  of  which  he  never  wearied.  He  was 
a  strong  Conservative,  or,  as  he  preferred  to  call  himself, 
a  Tory ;  except  in  so  far  as  his  views  were  modified  by 
a  hot-headed  chivalrous  sentiment  for  women.  He  was 
actually  in  favour  of  a  marriage  law  under  which  any 
woman  might  have  a  divorce  for  the  asking,  and  no 
man  on  any  ground  whatever;  and  the  same  sentiment 
found  another  expression  in  a  Magdalen  Mission  in 
Edinburgh,  founded  and  largely  supported  by  himself. 
This  was  but  one  of  the  many  channels  of  his  public 
generosity;  his  private  was  equally  unstrained.  The 
Church  of  Scotland,  of  which  he  held  the  doctrines 
(though  in  a  sense  of  his  own)  and  to  which  he  bore 
a  clansman's  loyalty,  profited  often  by  his  time  and 
money;  and  though,  from  a  morbid  sense  of  his  own 
unworthiness,  he  would  never  consent  to  be  an  office- 
bearer, his  advice  was  often  sought,  and  he  served  the 
Church  on  many  committees.  What  he  perhaps  valued 
highest  in  his  work  were  his  contributions  to  the  de- 
fence of  Christianity ;  one  of  which,  in  particular,  was 
praised  by  Hutchinson  Stirling  and  reprinted  at  the  re- 
quest of  Professor  Crawford. 

His  sense  of  his  own  unworthiness  I  have  called  mor- 
bid ;  morbid,  too,  were  his  sense  of  the  fleetingness  of 
life  and  his  concern  for  death.  He  had  never  accepted 
the  conditions  of  man's  life  or  his  own  character;  and 
his  inmost  thoughts  were  ever  tinged  with  the  Celtic 
melancholy.  Cases  of  conscience  were  sometimes  griev- 
ous to  him,  and  that  delicate  employment  of  a  scien- 

26} 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

tific  witness  cost  him  many  qualms.  But  he  found  res^ 
pite  from  these  troublesome  humours  in  his  work,  in 
his  lifelong  study  of  natural  science,  in  the  society  of 
those  he  loved,  and  in  his  daily  walks,  which  now 
would  carry  him  far  into  the  country  with  some  congen- 
ial friend,  and  now  keep  him  dangling  about  the  town 
from  one  old  book-shop  to  another,  and  scraping  roman- 
tic acquaintance  with  every  dog  that  passed.  His  talk, 
compounded  of  so  much  sterling  sense  and  so  much 
freakish  humour,  and  clothed  in  language  so  apt,  droll, 
and  emphatic,  was  a  perpetual  delight  to  all  who  knew 
him  before  the  clouds  began  to  settle  on  his  mind.  His 
use  of  language  was  both  just  and  picturesque;  and 
when  at  the  beginning  of  his  illness  he  began  to  feel  the 
ebbing  of  this  power,  it  was  strange  and  painful  to  hear 
him  reject  one  word  after  another  as  inadequate,  and  at 
length  desist  from  the  search  and  leave  his  phrase  un- 
finished rather  than  finish  it  without  propriety.  It  was 
perhaps  another  Celtic  trait  that  his  affections  and  emo- 
tions, passionate  as  these  were,  and  liable  to  passionate 
ups  and  downs,  found  the  most  eloquent  expression 
both  in  words  and  gestures.  Love,  anger,  and  indig- 
nation shone  through  him  and  broke  forth  in  imagery, 
like  what  we  read  of  Southern  races.  For  all  these  emo- 
tional extremes,  and  in  spite  of  the  melancholy  ground 
of  his  character,  he  had  upon  the  whole  a  happy  life; 
nor  was  he  less  fortunate  in  his  death,  which  at  the  last 
came  to  him  unaware. 


264 


X.   TALK  AND  TALKERS 

"Sir,  we  had  a  good  talk." — Johnson. 

"  As  we  must  account  for  every  idle  word,  so  we  must  for  every  idle 
silence." —  Franklin. 


THERE  can  be  no  fairer  ambition  than  to  excel  in 
talk ;  to  be  affable,  gay,  ready,  clear  and  welcome ; 
to  have  a  fact,  a  thought,  or  an  illustration,  pat  to  every 
subject;  and  not  only  to  cheer  the  flight  of  time  among 
our  intimates,  but  bear  our  part  in  that  great  interna- 
tional congress,  always  sitting,  where  public  wrongs 
are  first  declared,  public  errors  first  corrected,  and  the 
course  of  public  opinion  shaped,  day  by  day,  a  little 
nearer  to  the  right.  No  measure  comes  before  Parlia- 
ment but  it  has  been  long  ago  prepared  by  the  grand 
jury  of  the  talkers ;  no  book  is  written  that  has  not  been 
largely  composed  by  their  assistance.  Literature  in  many 
of  its  branches  is  no  other  than  the  shadow  of  good 
talk ;  but  the  imitation  falls  far  short  of  the  original  in 
life,  freedom  and  effect.  There  are  always  two  to  a  talk, 
giving  and  taking,  comparing  experience  and  according 
conclusions.  Talk  is  fluid,  tentative,  continually  "in 
further  search  and  progress ; "  while  written  words  re- 
main fixed,  become  idols  even  to  the  writer,  found 
wooden  dogmatisms,  and  preserve  flies  of  obvious  error 

265 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

in  the  amber  of  the  truth.  Last  and  chief,  while  litera- 
ture, gagged  with  linsey-woolsey,  can  only  deal  with  a 
fraction  of  the  life  of  man,  talk  goes  fancy  free  and  may 
call  a  spade  a  spade.  Talk  has  none  of  the  freezing  im- 
munities of  the  pulpit.  It  cannot,  even  if  it  would,  be- 
come merely  aesthetic  or  merely  classical  like  literature. 
A  jest  intervenes,  the  solemn  humbug  is  dissolved  in 
laughter,  and  speech  runs  forth  out  of  the  contemporary 
groove  into  the  open  fields  of  nature,  cheery  and  cheer- 
ing, like  schoolboys  out  of  school.  And  it  is  in  talk 
alone  that  we  can  learn  our  period  and  ourselves.  In 
short,  the  first  duty  of  a  man  is  to  speak;  that  is  his 
chief  business  in  this  world ;  and  talk,  which  is  the  har- 
monious speech  of  two  or  more,  is  by  far  the  most  ac- 
cessible of  pleasures.  It  costs  nothing  in  money ;  it  is 
all  profit ;  it  completes  our  education,  founds  and  fosters 
our  friendships,  and  can  be  enjoyed  at  any  age  and  in 
almost  any  state  of  health. 

The  spice  of  life  is  battle;  the  friendliest  relations  are 
still  a  kind  of  contest;  and  if  we  would  not  forego  all 
that  is  valuable  in  our  lot,  we  must  continually  face  some 
other  person,  eye  to  eye,  and  wrestle  a  fall  whether  in 
love  or  enmity.  It  is  still  by  force  of  body,  or  power  of 
character  or  intellect,  that  we  attain  to  worthy  pleasures. 
Men  and  women  contend  for  each  other  in  the  lists  of 
love,  like  rival  mesmerists ;  the  active  and  adroit  decide 
their  challenges  in  the  sports  of  the  body;  and  the  sed- 
entary sit  down  to  chess  or  conversation.  All  sluggish 
and  pacific  pleasures  are,  to  the  same  degree,  solitary 
and  selfish;  and  every  durable  bond  between  human 
beings  is  founded  in  or  heightened  by  some  element  of 
competition.     Now,  the  relation  that  has  the  least  root 

266 


TALK   AND   TALKERS 

in  matter  is  undoubtedly  that  airy  one  of  friendship ;  and 
hence,  I  suppose,  it  is  that  good  talk  most  commonly 
arises  among  friends.  Talk  is,  indeed,  both  the  scene 
and  instrument  of  friendship.  It  is  in  talk  alone  that 
the  friends  can  measure  strength,  and  enjoy  that  ami- 
cable counter-assertion  of  personality  which  is  the 
gauge  of  relations  and  the  sport  of  life. 

A  good  talk  is  not  to  be  had  for  the  asking.  Humours 
must  first  be  accorded  in  a  kind  of  overture  or  prologue; 
hour,  company  and  circumstance  be  suited;  and  then, 
at  a  fit  juncture,  the  subject,  the  quarry  of  two  heated 
minds,  spring  up  like  a  deer  out  of  the  wood.  Not 
that  the  talker  has  any  of  the  hunter's  pride,  though  he 
has  all  and  more  than  all  his  ardour.  The  genuine  artist 
follows  the  stream  of  conversation  as  an  angler  follows 
the  windings  of  a  brook,  not  dallying  where  he  fails  to 
"kill."  He  trusts  implicitly  to  hazard;  and  he  is  re- 
warded by  continual  variety,  continual  pleasure,  and 
those  changing  prospects  of  the  truth  that  are  the  best 
of  education.  There  is  nothing  in  a  subject,  so  called, 
that  we  should  regard  it  as  an  idol,  or  follow  it  beyond 
the  promptings  of  desire.  Indeed,  there  are  few  sub- 
jects ;  and  so  far  as  they  are  truly  talkable,  more  than 
the  half  of  them  may  be  reduced  to  three :  that  I  am  I, 
that  you  are  you,  and  that  there  are  other  people  dimly 
understood  to  be  not  quite  the  same  as  either.  Where- 
ever  talk  may  range,  it  still  runs  half  the  time  on  these 
eternal  lines.  The  theme  being  set,  each  plays  on  him- 
self as  on  an  instrument ;  asserts  and  justifies  himself; 
ransacks  his  brain  for  instances  and  opinions,  and  brings 
them  forth  new-minted,  to  his  own  surprise  and  the 
admiration  of  his  adversary.     All  natural  talk  is  a  fes- 

267 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

tival  of  ostentation ;  and  by  the  laws  of  the  game  each 
accepts  and  fans  the  vanity  of  the  other.  It  is  from  that 
reason  that  we  venture  to  lay  ourselves  so  open,  that 
we  dare  to  be  so  warmly  eloquent,  and  that  we  swell 
in  each  other's  eyes  to  such  a  vast  proportion.  For 
talkers,  once  launched,  begin  to  overflow  the  limits  of 
their  ordinary  selves,  tower  up  to  the  height  of  their 
secret  pretensions,  and  give  themselves  out  for  the 
heroes,  brave,  pious,  musical  and  wise,  that  in  their 
most  shining  moments  they  aspire  to  be.  So  they 
weave  for  themselves  with  words  and  for  a  while  in- 
habit a  palace  of  delights,  temple  at  once  and  theatre, 
where  they  fill  the  round  of  the  world's  dignities,  and 
feast  with  the  gods,  exulting  in  Kudos.  And  when  the 
talk  is  over,  each  goes  his  way,  still  flushed  with  vanity 
and  admiration,  still  trailing  clouds  of  glory ;  each  de- 
clines from  the  height  of  his  ideal  orgie,  not  in  a  mo- 
ment, but  by  slow  declension.  I  remember,  in  the 
entr'acte  of  an  afternoon  performance,  coming  forth  into 
the  sunshine,  in  a  beautiful  green,  gardened  corner  of  a 
romantic  city ;  and  as  I  sat  and  smoked,  the  music  mov- 
ing in  my  blood,  I  seemed  to  sit  there  and  evaporate 
The  Flying  Dutchman  (for  it  was  that  I  had  been  hear- 
ing) with  a  wonderful  sense  of  life,  warmth,  well-being 
and  pride;  and  the  noises  of  the  city,  voices,  bells  and 
marching  feet,  fell  together  in  my  ears  like  a  sympho- 
nious  orchestra.  In  the  same  way,  the  excitement  of 
a  good  talk  lives  for  a  long  while  after  in  the  blood,  the 
heart  still  hot  within  you,  the  brain  still  simmering,  and 
the  physical  earth  swimming  around  you  with  the  col- 
ours of  the  sunset. 
Natural  talk,  like  ploughing,  should  turn  up  a  large 
268 


TALK   AND   TALKERS 

surface  of  life,  rather  than  dig  mines  into  geological 
strata.  Masses  of  experience,  anecdote,  incident,  cross- 
lights,  quotation,  historical  instances,  the  whole  flotsam 
and  jetsam  of  two  minds  forced  in  and  in  upon  the 
matter  in  hand  from  every  point  of  the  compass,  and 
from  every  degree  of  mental  elevation  and  abasement  — 
these  are  the  material  with  which  talk  is  fortified,  the 
food  on  which  the  talkers  thrive.  Such  argument  as  is 
proper  to  the  exercise  should  still  be  brief  and  seizing. 
Talk  should  proceed  by  instances;  by  the  apposite,  not 
the  expository.  It  should  keep  close  along  the  lines  of 
humanity,  near  the  bosoms  and  businesses  of  men,  at 
the  level  where  history,  fiction  and  experience  intersect 
and  illuminate  each  other.  I  am  I,  and  You  are  You, 
with  all  my  heart;  but  conceive  how  these  lean  proposi- 
tions change  and  brighten  when,  instead  of  words,  the 
actual  you  and  I  sit  cheek  by  jowl,  the  spirit  housed  in 
the  live  body,  and  the  very  clothes  uttering  voices  to 
corroborate  the  story  in  the  face.  Not  less  surprising  is 
the  change  when  we  leave  off  to  speak  of  generalities  — 
the  bad,  the  good,  the  miser,  and  all  the  characters  of 
Theophrastus  —  and  call  up  other  men,  by  anecdote  or 
instance,  in  their  very  trick  and  feature ;  or  trading  on  a 
common  knowledge,  toss  each  other  famous  names, 
still  glowing  with  the  hues  of  life.  Communication  is 
no  longer  by  words,  but  by  the  instancing  of  whole 
biographies,  epics,  systems  of  philosophy,  and  epochs 
of  history,  in  bulk.  That  which  is  understood  excels 
that  which  is  spoken  in  quantity  and  quality  alike; 
ideas  thus  figured  and  personified,  change  hands,  as  we 
may  say,  like  coin;  and  the  speakers  imply  without 
effort  the  most  obscure  and  intricate  thoughts.    Strangers 

269 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

who  have  a  large  common  ground  of  reading  will,  for 
this  reason,  come  the  sooner  to  the  grapple  of  genuine 
converse.  If  they  know  Othello  and  Napoleon,  Con- 
suelo  and  Clarissa  Harlowe,  Vautrin  and  Steenie  Steen- 
son,  they  can  leave  generalities  and  begin  at  once  to 
speak  by  figures. 

Conduct  and  art  are  the  two  subjects  that  arise  most 
frequently  and  that  embrace  the  widest  range  of  facts. 
A  few  pleasures  bear  discussion  for  their  own  sake,  but 
only  those  which  are  most  social  or  most  radically  hu- 
man ;  and  even  these  can  only  be  discussed  among  their 
devotees.  A  technicality  is  always  welcome  to  the  ex- 
pert, whether  in  athletics,  art  or  law ;  I  have  heard  the 
best  kind  of  talk  on  technicalities  from  such  rare  and 
happy  persons  as  both  know  and  love  their  business. 
No  human  being  ever  spoke  of  scenery  for  above  two 
minutes  at  a  time,  which  makes  me  suspect  we  hear 
too  much  of  it  in  literature.  The  weather  is  regarded 
as  the  very  nadir  and  scoff  of  conversational  topics. 
And  yet  the  weather,  the  dramatic  element  in  scenery, 
is  far  more  tractable  in  language,  and  far  more  human 
both  in  import  and  suggestion  than  the  stable  features 
of  the  landscape.  Sailors  and  shepherds,  and  the  peo- 
ple generally  of  coast  and  mountain,  talk  well  of  it;  and 
it  is  often  excitingly  presented  in  literature.  But  the 
tendency  of  all  living  talk  draws  it  back  and  back  into 
the  common  focus  of  humanity.  Talk  is  a  creature  of 
the  street  and  market-place,  feeding  on  gossip ;  and  its 
last  resort  is  still  in  a  discussion  on  morals.  That  is  the 
heroic  form  of  gossip ;  heroic  in  virtue  of  its  high  pre- 
tensions ;  but  still  gossip,  because  it  turns  on  personali- 
ties.    You  can  keep  no  men  long,  nor  Scotchmen  at  all, 

270 


TALK  AND   TALKERS 

off  moral  or  theological  discussion.  These  are  to  all  the 
world  what  law  is  to  lawyers;  they  are  everybody's 
technicalities;  the  medium  through  which  all  consider 
life,  and  the  dialect  in  which  they  express  their  judg- 
ments. I  knew  three  young  men  who  walked  together 
daily  for  some  two  months  in  a  solemn  and  beautiful 
forest  and  in  cloudless  summer  weather;  daily  they 
talked  with  unabated  zest,  and  yet  scarce  wandered 
that  whole  time  beyond  two  subjects  —  theology  and 
love.  And  perhaps  neither  a  court  of  love  nor  an  as- 
sembly of  divines  would  have  granted  their  premises 
or  welcomed  their  conclusions. 

Conclusions,  indeed,  are  not  often  reached  by  talk  any 
more  than  by  private  thinking.  That  is  not  the  profit. 
The  profit  is  in  the  exercise,  and  above  all  in  the  experi- 
ence; for  when  we  reason  at  large  on  any  subject,  we 
review  our  state  and  history  in  life.  From  time  to  time, 
however,  and  specially,  I  think,  in  talking  art,  talk  be- 
comes effective,  conquering  like  war,  widening  the 
boundaries  of  knowledge  like  an  exploration.  A  point 
arises;  the  question  takes  a  problematical,  a  baffling, 
yet  a  likely  air;  the  talkers  begin  to  feel  lively  presenti- 
ments of  some  conclusion  near  at  hand;  towards  this 
they  strive  with  emulous  ardour,  each  by  his  own  path, 
and  struggling  for  first  utterance;  and  then  one  leaps 
upon  the  summit  of  that  matter  with  a  shout,  and  almost 
at  the  same  moment  the  other  is  beside  him ;  and  behold 
they  are  agreed.  Like  enough,  the  progress  is  illusory, 
a  mere  cat's  cradle  having  been  wound  and  unwound 
out  of  words.  But  the  sense  of  joint  discovery  is  none 
the  less  giddy  and  inspiriting.  And  in  the  life  of  the 
talker  such  triumphs,  though  imaginary,  are  neither  few 

271 


MEMORIES   AND    PORTRAITS 

nor  far  apart;  they  are  attained  with  speed  and  pleasure, 
in  the  hour  of  mirth ;  and  by  the  nature  of  the  process, 
they  are  always  worthily  shared. 

There  is  a  certain  attitude,  combative  at  once  and 
deferential,  eager  to  fight  yet  most  averse  to  quarrel, 
which  marks  out  at  once  the  talkable  man.  It  is  not 
eloquence,  not  fairness,  not  obstinacy,  but  a  certain 
proportion  of  all  of  these  that  I  love  to  encounter  in  my 
amicable  adversaries.  They  must  not  be  pontiffs  hold- 
ing doctrine,  but  huntsmen  questing  after  elements  of 
truth.  Neither  must  they  be  boys  to  be  instructed,  but 
fellow-teachers  with  whom  I  may  wrangle  and  agree 
on  equal  terms.  We  must  reach  some  solution,  some 
shadow  of  consent;  for  without  that,  eager  talk  becomes 
a  torture.  But  we  do  not  wish  to  reach  it  cheaply,  or 
quickly,  or  without  the  tussle  and  effort  wherein  pleas- 
ure lies. 

The  very  best  talker,  with  me,  is  one  whom  I  shall 
call  Spring-Heel'd  Jack.  I  say  so,  because  I  never  knew 
any  one  who  mingled  so  largely  the  possible  ingredients 
of  converse.  In  the  Spanish  proverb,  the  fourth  man 
necessary  to  compound  a  salad,  is  a  madman  to  mix  it: 
Jack  is  that  madman.  I  know  not  which  is  more  re- 
markable; the  insane  lucidity  of  his  conclusions,  the 
humorous  eloquence  of  his  language,  or  his  power  of 
method,  bringing  the  whole  of  life  into  the  focus  of  the 
subject  treated,  mixing  the  conversational  salad  Jike  a 
drunken  god.  He  doubles  like  the  serpent,  changes  and 
flashes  like  the  shaken  kaleidoscope,  transmigrates  bod- 
ily into  the  views  of  others,  and  so,  in  the  twinkling  of 
an  eye  and  with  a  heady  rapture,  turns  questions  inside 
out  and  flings  them  empty  before  you  on  the  ground, 


TALK  AND   TALKERS 

like  a  triumphant  conjuror.  It  is  my  common  practice 
when  a  piece  of  conduct  puzzles  me,  to  attack  it  in  the 
presence  of  Jack  with  such  grossness,  such  partiality 
and  such  wearing  iteration,  as  at  length  shall  spur  him 
up  in  its  defence.  In  a  moment  he  transmigrates,  dons 
the  required  character,  and  with  moonstruck  philosophy 
justifies  the  act  in  question.  I  can  fancy  nothing  to  com- 
pare with  the  vim  of  these  impersonations,  the  strange 
scale  of  language,  flying  from  Shakespeare  to  Kant,  and 
from  Kant  to  Major  Dyngwell  — 

"As  fast  as  a  musician  scatters  sounds 
Out  of  an  instrument  —  " 

the  sudden,  sweeping  generalisations,  the  absurd  irrele- 
vant particularities,  the  wit,  wisdom,  folly,  humour, 
eloquence  and  bathos,  each  startling  in  its  kind,  and  yet 
all  luminous  in  the  admired  disorder  of  their  combina- 
tion. A  talker  of  a  different  calibre,  though  belonging 
to  the  same  school,  is  Burly.  Burly  is  a  man  of  a  great 
presence ;  he  commands  a  larger  atmosphere,  gives  the 
impression  of  a  grosser  mass  of  character  than  most  men. 
It  has  been  said  of  him  that  his  presence  could  be  felt  in 
a  room  you  entered  blindfold ;  and  the  same,  I  think, 
has  been  said  of  other  powerful  constitutions  condemned 
to  much  physical  inaction,  There  is  something  boister- 
ous and  piratic  in  Burly's  manner  of  talk  which  suits 
well  enough  with  +his  impression.  He  will  roar  you 
down,  he  will  bury  his  face  in  his  hands,  he  will  undergo 
passions  of  revolt  and  agony ;  and  meanwhile  his  attitude 
of  mind  is  really  both  conciliatory  and  receptive;  and  af- 
ter Pistol  has  been  out-Pistol'd,  and  the  welkin  rung  for 
hours,  you  begin  to  perceive  a  certain  subsidence  in 

273 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

these  spring  torrents,  points  of  agreement  issue,  and  you 
end  arm-in-arm,  and  in  a  glow  of  mutual  admiration. 
The  outcry  only  serves  to  make  your  final  union  the 
more  unexpected  and  precious.  Throughout  there  has 
been  perfect  sincerity,  perfect  intelligence,  a  desire  to 
hear  although  not  always  to  listen,  and  an  unaffected 
eagerness  to  meet  concessions.  You  have,  with  Burly, 
none  of  the  dangers  that  attend  debate  with  Spring- 
Heel'd  Jack;  who  may  at  any  moment  turn  his  powers 
of  transmigration  on  yourself,  create  for  you  a  view  you 
never  held,  and  then  furiously  fall  on  you  for  holding  it. 
These,  at  least,  are  my  two  favourites,  and  both  are 
loud,  copious,  intolerant  talkers.  This  argues  that  I 
myself  am  in  the  same  category;  for  if  we  love  talking 
at  all,  we  love  a  bright,  fierce  adversary,  who  will  hold 
his  ground,  foot  by  foot,  in  much  our  own  manner,  sell 
his  attention  dearly,  and  give  us  our  full  measure  of  the 
dust  and  exertion  of  battle.  Both  these  men  can  be 
beat  from  a  position,  but  it  takes  six  hours  to  do  it;  a 
high  and  hard  adventure,  worth  attempting.  With 
both  you  can  pass  days  in  an  enchanted  country  of  the 
mind,  with  people,  scenery  and  manners  of  its  own; 
live  a  life  apart,  more  arduous,  active  and  glowing  than 
any  real  existence ;  and  come  forth  again  when  the  talk 
is  over,  as  out  of  a  theatre  or  a  dream,  to  find  the  east 
wind  still  blowing  and  the  chimney-pots  of  the  old 
battered  city  still  around  you.  Jack  has  the  far  finer 
mind,  Burly  the  far  more  honest;  Jack  gives  us  the 
animated  poetry,  Burly  the  romantic  prose,  of  similar 
themes ;  the  one  glances  high  like  a  meteor  and  makes 
a  light  in  darkness;  the  other,  with  many  changing 
hues  of  fire,  burns  at  the  sea-level,  like  a  conflagration  ; 

274 


TALK  AND   TALKERS 

but  both  have  the  same  humour  and  artistic  interests, 
the  same  unquenched  ardour  in  pursuit,  the  same  gusts 
of  talk  and  thunderclaps  of  contradiction. 

Cockshot1  is  a  different  article,  but  vastly  entertain- 
ing, and  has  been  meat  and  drink  to  me  for  many  a  long 
evening.  His  manner  is  dry,  brisk  and  pertinacious, 
and  the  choice  of  words  not  much.  The  point  about 
him  is  his  extraordinary  readiness  and  spirit.  You  can 
propound  nothing  but  he  has  either  a  theory  about  it 
ready-made,  or  will  have  one  instantly  on  the  stocks, 
and  proceed  to  lay  its  timbers  and  launch  it  in  your 
presence.  "Let  me  see,"  he  will  say.  "Give  me  a 
moment.  I  should  have  some  theory  for  that."  A 
blither  spectacle  than  the  vigour  with  which  he  sets 
about  the  task,  it  were  hard  to  fancy.  He  is  possessed 
by  a  demoniac  energy,  welding  the  elements  for  his 
life,  and  bending  ideas,  as  an  athlete  bends  a  horseshoe, 
with  a  visible  and  lively  effort.  He  has,  in  theorising, 
a  compass,  an  art;  what  I  would  call  the  synthetic 
gusto;  something  of  a  Herbert  Spencer,  who  should 
see  the  fun  of  the  thing.  You  are  not  bound,  and  no 
more  is  he,  to  place  your  faith  in  these  brand-new  opin- 
ions. But  some  of  them  are  right  enough,  durable  even 
for  life ;  and  the  poorest  serve  for  a  cock-shy —  as  when 
idle  people,  after  picnics,  float  a  bottle  on  a  pond  and 
have  an  hour's  diversion  ere  it  sinks.  Whichever  they 
are,  serious  opinions  or  humours  of  the  moment,  he 
still  defends  his  ventures  with  indefatigable  wit  and 
spirit,  hitting  savagely  himself,  but  taking  punishment 
like  a  man.  He  knows  and  never  forgets  that  people 
talk,  first  of  all,  for  the  sake  of  talking;  conducts  him- 

1  The  late  Fleeming  Jenkin. 

275 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

self  in  the  ring,  to  use  the  old  slang,  like  a  thorough 
"glutton,"  and  honestly  enjoys  a  telling  facer  from  his 
adversary.  Cockshot  is  bottled  effervescency,  the  sworn 
foe  of  sleep.  Three-in-the-morning  Cockshot,  says  a 
victim.  His  talk  is  like  the  driest  of  all  imaginable  dry 
champagnes.  Sleight  of  hand  and  inimitable  quickness 
are  the  qualities  by  which  he  lives.  Athelred,  on  the 
other  hand,  presents  you  with  the  spectacle  of  a  sin- 
cere and  somewhat  slow  nature  thinking  aloud.  He  is 
the  most  unready  man  I  ever  knew  to  shine  in  conver- 
sation. You  may  see  him  sometimes  wrestle  with  a 
refractory  jest  for  a  minute  or  two  together,  and  per-, 
haps  fail  to  throw  it  in  the  end.  And  there  is  some- 
thing singularly  engaging,  often  instructive,  in  the 
simplicity  with  which  he  thus  exposes  the  process  as 
well  as  the  result,  the  works  as  well  as  the  dial  of  the 
clock.  Withal  he  has  his  hours  of  inspiration.  Apt 
words  come  to  him  as  if  by  accident,  and,  coming  from 
deeper  down,  they  smack  the  more  personally,  they 
have  the  more  of  fine  old  crusted  humanity,  rich  in 
sediment  and  humour.  There  are  sayings  of  his  in 
which  he  has  stamped  himself  into  the  very  grain  of 
the  language;  you  would  think  he  must  have  worn  the 
words  next  his  skin  and  slept  with  them.  Yet  it  is  not 
as  a  sayer  of  particular  good  things  that  Athelred  is 
most  to  be  regarded,  rather  as  the  stalwart  woodman 
of  thought.  I  have  pulled  on  a  light  cord  often  enough, 
while  he  has  been  wielding  the  broad-axe;  and  between 
us,  on  this  unequal  division,  many  a  specious  fallacy 
has  fallen.  I  have  known  him  to  battle  the  same  ques- 
tion night  after  night  for  years,  keeping  it  in  the  reign 
of  talk,  constantly  applying  it  and  re-applying  it  to  life 

276 


TALK   AND  TALKERS 

with  humorous  or  grave  intention,  and  all  the  while, 
never  hurrying,  nor  flagging,  nor  taking  an  unfair  ad- 
vantage of  the  facts.  Jack  at  a  given  moment,  when 
arising,  as  it  were,  from  the  tripod,  can  be  more  radi- 
antly just  to  those  from  whom  he  differs;  but  then  the 
tenor  of  his  thoughts  is  even  calumnious;  while  Athel- 
red,  slower  to  forge  excuses,  is  yet  slower  to  condemn, 
and  sits  over  the  welter  of  the  world,  vacillating  but  still 
judicial,  and  still  faithfully  contending  with  his  doubts. 

Both  the  last  talkers  deal  much  in  points  of  conduct 
and  religion  studied  in  the  "dry  light"  of  prose.  In- 
directly and  as  if  against  his  will  the  same  elements 
from  time  to  time  appear  in  the  troubled  and  poetic  talk 
of  Opalstein.  His  various  and  exotic  knowledge,  com- 
plete although  unready  sympathies,  and  fine,  full,  dis- 
criminative flow  of  language,  fit  him  out  to  be  the  best 
of  talkers ;  so  perhaps  he  is  with  some,  not  quite  with 
me — proxime  accessit,  I  should  say.  He  sings  the 
praises  of  the  earth  and  the  arts,  flowers  and  jewels, 
wine  and  music,  in  a  moonlight,  serenading  manner,  as 
to  the  light  guitar;  even  wisdom  comes  from  his  tongue 
like  singing;  no  one  is,  indeed,  more  tuneful  in  the  upper 
notes.  But  even  while  he  sings  the  song  of  the  Sirens, 
he  still  hearkens  to  the  barking  of  the  Sphinx.  Jarring 
Byronic  notes  interrupt  the  flow  of  his  Horatian  humours. 
His  mirth  has  something  of  the  tragedy  of  the  world  for 
its  perpetual  background;  and  he  feasts  like  Don  Gio- 
vanni to  a  double  orchestra,  one  lightly  sounding  for  the 
dance,  one  pealing  Beethoven  in  the  distance.  He  is 
not  truly  reconciled  either  with  life  or  with  himself;  and 
this  instant  war  in  his  members  sometimes  divides  the 
man's  attention.    He  does  not  always,  perhaps  not  often, 

277 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

frankly  surrender  himself  in  conversation.  He  brings 
into  the  talk  other  thoughts  than  those  which  he  ex- 
presses; you  are  conscious  that  he  keeps  an  eye  on 
something  else,  that  he  does  not  shake  off  the  world, 
nor  quite  forget  himself.  Hence  arise  occasional  disap- 
pointments ;  even  an  occasional  unfairness  for  his  com- 
panions, who  find  themselves  one  day  giving  too  much, 
and  the  next,  when  they  are  wary  out  of  season,  giving 
perhaps  too  little.  Purcel  is  in  another  class  from  any  I 
have  mentioned.  He  is  no  debater,  but  appears  in  con- 
versation, as  occasion  rises,  in  two  distinct  characters, 
one  of  which  I  admire  and  fear,  and  the  other  love.  In 
the  first,  he  is  radiantly  civil  and  rather  silent,  sits  on  a 
high,  courtly  hilltop,  and  from  that  vantage-ground 
drops  you  his  remarks  like  favours.  He  seems  not  to 
share  in  our  sublunary  contentions;  he  wears  no  sign 
of  interest;  when  on  a  sudden  there  falls  in  a  crystal  of 
wit,  so  polished  that  the  dull  do  not  perceive  it,  but  so 
right  that  the  sensitive  are  silenced.  True  talk  should 
have  more  body  and  blood,  should  be  louder,  vainer 
and  more  declaratory  of  the  man ;  the  true  talker  should 
not  hold  so  steady  an  advantage  over  whom  he  speaks 
with ;  and  that  is  one  reason  out  of  a  score  why  I  prefer 
my  Purcel  in  his  second  character,  when  he  unbends 
into  a  strain  of  graceful  gossip,  singing  like  the  fireside 
kettle.  In  these  moods  he  has  an  elegant  homeliness 
that  rings  of  the  true  Queen  Anne.  I  know  another 
person  who  attains,  in  his  moments,  to  the  insolence  of 
a  Restoration  comedy,  speaking,  I  declare,  as  Congreve 
wrote;  but  that  is  a  sport  of  nature,  and  scarce  falls 
under  the  rubric,  for  there  is  none,  alas!  to  give  him 
answer. 

378 


TALK   AND   TALKERS 

One  last  remark  occurs:  It  is  the  mark  of  genuine 
conversation  that  the  sayings  can  scarce  be  quoted  with 
their  full  effect  beyond  the  circle  of  common  friends. 
To  have  their  proper  weight  they  should  appear  in  a 
biography,  and  with  the  portrait  of  the  speaker.  Good 
talk  is  dramatic ;  it  is  like  an  impromptu  piece  of  acting 
where  each  should  represent  himself  to  the  greatest  ad- 
vantage; and  that  is  the  best  kind  of  talk  where  each 
speaker  is  most  fully  and  candidly  himself,  and  where, 
if  you  were  to  shift  the  speeches  round  from  one  to  an- 
other, there  would  be  the  greatest  loss  in  significance 
and  perspicuity.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  talk  depends 
so  wholly  on  our  company.  We  should  like  to  intro- 
duce Falstaff  and  Mercutio,  or  FalstafT  and  Sir  Toby ;  but 
Falstaff  in  talk  with  Cordelia  seems  even  painful.  Most 
of  us,  by  the  Protean  quality  of  man,  can  talk  to  some 
degree  with  all ;  but  the  true  talk,  that  strikes  out  all  the 
slumbering  best  of  us,  comes  only  with  the  peculiar 
brethren  of  our  spirits,  is  founded  as  deep  as  love  in  the 
constitution  of  our  being,  and  is  a  thing  to  relish  with 
all  our  energy,  while  yet  we  have  it,  and  to  be  grateful 
for  for  ever. 


279 


XI.    TALK  AND   TALKERS* 


IN  the  last  paper  there  was  perhaps  too  much  about 
mere  debate ;  and  there  was  nothing  said  at  all  about 
that  kind  of  talk  which  is  merely  luminous  and  restful, 
a  higher  power  of  silence,  the  quiet  of  the  evening  shared 
by  ruminating  friends.  There  is  something,  aside  from 
personal  preference,  to  be  alleged  in  support  of  this 
omission.  Those  who  are  no  chimney-cornerers,  who 
rejoice  in  the  social  thunderstorm,  have  a  ground  in 
reason  for  their  choice.  They  get  little  rest  indeed ;  but 
restfulness  is  a  quality  for  cattle ;  the  virtues  are  all  ac- 
tive, life  is  alert,  and  it  is  in  repose  that  men  prepare 
themselves  for  evil.  On  the  other  hand,  they  are 
bruised  into  a  knowledge  of  themselves  and  others; 
they  have  in  a  high  degree  the  fencer's  pleasure  in  dex- 
terity displayed  and  proved;  what  they  get  they  get 
upon  life's  terms,  paying  for  it  as  they  go ;  and  once  the 
talk  is  launched,  they  are  assured  of  honest  dealing  from 
an  adversary  eager  like  themselves.  The  aboriginal 
man  within  us,  the  cave-dweller,  still  lusty  as  when  he 
fought  tooth  and  nail  for  roots  and  berries,  scents  this 
kind  of  equal  battle  from  afar;  it  is  like  his  old  primaeval 
days  upon  the  crags,  a  return  to  the  sincerity  of  savage 

1  This  sequel  was  called  forth  by  an  excellent  article  in  The  Spectator. 
280 


TALK   AND  TALKERS 

life  from  the  comfortable  fictions  of  the  civilised.  And 
if  it  be  delightful  to  the  Old  Man,  it  is  none  the  less 
profitable  to  his  younger  brother,  the  conscientious  gen- 
tleman. I  feel  never  quite  sure  of  your  urbane  and 
smiling  coteries;  I  fear  they  indulge  a  man's  vanities  in 
silence,  suffer  him  to  encroach,  encourage  him  on  to  be 
an  ass,  and  send  him  forth  again,  not  merely  contemned 
for  the  moment,  but  radically  more  contemptible  than 
when  he  entered.  But  if  I  have  a  flushed,  blustering 
fellow  for  my  opposite,  bent  on  carrying  a  point,  my 
vanity  is  sure  to  have  its  ears  rubbed,  once  at  least,  in 
the  course  of  the  debate.  He  will  not  spare  me  when 
we  differ ;  he  will  not  fear  to  demonstrate  my  folly  to 
my  face. 

For  many  natures  there  is  not  much  charm  in  the  still, 
chambered  society,  the  circle  of  bland  countenances,  the 
digestive  silence,  the  admired  remark,  the  flutter  of  af- 
fectionate approval.  They  demand  more  atmosphere 
and  exercise;  "a  gale  upon  their  spirits,"  as  our  pious 
ancestors  would  phrase  it;  to  have  their  wits  well 
breathed  in  an  uproarious  Valhalla.  And  I  suspect  that 
the  choice,  given  their  character  and  faults,  is  one  to  be 
defended.  The  purely  wise  are  silenced  by  facts;  they 
talk  in  a  clear  atmosphere,  problems  lying  around  them 
like  a  view  in  nature ;  if  they  can  be  shown  to  be  some- 
what in  the  wrong,  they  digest  the  reproof  like  a  thrash- 
ing, and  make  better  intellectual  blood.  They  stand 
corrected  by  a  whisper;  a  word  or  a  glance  reminds 
them  of  the  great  eternal  law.  But  it  is  not  so  with  all. 
Others  in  conversation  seek  rather  contact  with  their 
fellow-men  than  increase  of  knowledge  or  clarity  of 
thought.     The  drama,* not  the  philosophy,  of  life  is 

281 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

the  sphere  of  their  intellectual  activity.  Even  when 
they  pursue  truth,  they  desire  as  much  as  possible  of 
what  we  may  call  human  scenery  along  the  road  they 
follow.  They  dwell  in  the  heart  of  life;  the  blood 
sounding  in  their  ears,  their  eyes  laying  hold  of  what 
delights  them  with  a  brutal  avidity  that  makes  them 
blind  to  all  besides,  their  interest  riveted  on  people,  liv- 
ing, loving,  talking,  tangible  people.  To  a  man  of  this 
description,  the  sphere  of  argument  seems  very  pale  and 
ghostly.  By  a  strong  expression,  a  perturbed  counte- 
nance, floods  of  tears,  an  insult  which  his  conscience 
obliges  him  to  swallow,  he  is  brought  round  to  knowl- 
edge which  no  syllogism  would  have  conveyed  to  him. 
His  own  experience  is  so  vivid,  he  is  so  superlatively 
conscious  of  himself,  that  if,  day  after  day,  he  is  allowed 
to  hector  and  hear  nothing  but  approving  echoes,  he 
will  lose  his  hold  on  the  soberness  of  things  and  take 
himself  in  earnest  for  a  god.  Talk  might  be  to  such  an 
one  the  very  way  of  moral  ruin ;  the  school  where  he 
might  learn  to  be  at  once  intolerable  and  ridiculous. 

This  character  is  perhaps  commoner  than  philosophers 
suppose.  And  for  persons  of  that  stamp  to  learn  much 
by  conversation,  they  must  speak  with  their  superiors, 
not  in  intellect,  for  that  is  a  superiority  that  must  be 
proved,  but  in  station.  If  they  cannot  find  a  friend  to 
bully  them  for  their  good,  they  must  find  either  an  old 
man,  a  woman,  or  some  one  so  far  below  them  in  the 
artificial  order  of  society,  that  courtesy  may  be  particu- 
larly exercised. 

The  best  teachers  are  the  aged.  To  the  old  our 
mouths  are  always  partly  closed ;  we  must  swallow  our 
obvious  retorts  and  listen.     They  sit  above  our  heads, 

282 


TALK  AND   TALKERS 

on  life's  raised  dais,  and  appeal  at  once  to  our  respect 
and  pity.  A  flavour  of  the  old  school,  a  touch  of  some- 
thing different  in  their  manner  —  which  is  freer  and 
rounder,  if  they  come  of  what  is  called  a  good  family, 
and  often  more  timid  and  precise  if  they  are  of  the  mid- 
dle class  —  serves,  in  these  days,  to  accentuate  the  dif- 
ference of  age  and  add  a  distinction  to  gray  hairs.  But 
their  superiority  is  founded  more  deeply  than  by  out- 
ward marks  or  gestures.  They  are  before  us  in  the 
inarch  of  man ;  they  have  more  or  less  solved  the  irking 
problem;  they  have  battled  through  the  equinox  of  life; 
in  good  and  evil  they  have  held  their  course;  and  now, 
without  open  shame,  they  near  the  crown  and  harbour, 
ft  may  be  we  have  been  struck  with  one  of  fortune's 
darts;  we  can  scarce  be  civil,  so  cruelly  is  our  spirit 
tossed.  Yet  long  before  we  were  so  much  as  thought 
upon,  the  like  calamity  befell  the  old  man  or  woman 
that  now,  with  pleasant  humour,  rallies  us  upon  our  in- 
attention, sitting  composed  in  the  holy  evening  of  man's 
life,  in  the  clear  shining  after  rain.  We  grow  ashamed 
of  our  distresses,  new  and  hot  and  coarse,  like  villain- 
ous roadside  brandy;  we  see  life  in  aerial  perspective, 
under  the  heavens  of  faith ;  and  out  of  the  worst,  in  the 
mere  presence  of  contented  elders,  look  forward  and 
take  patience.  Fear  shrinks  before  them  "  like  a  thing 
reproved,"  not  the  flitting  and  ineffectual  fear  of  death, 
but  the  instant,  dwelling  terror  of  the  responsibilities 
and  revenges  of  life.  Their  speech,  indeed,  is  timid ; 
they  report  lions  in  the  path ;  they  counsel  a  meticulous 
footing;  but  their  serene,  marred  faces  are  more  eloquent 
and  tell  another  story.  Where  they  have  gone,  we  will 
go  also,  not  very  greatly  fearing;  what  they  have  en- 

283 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

dured  unbroken,  we  also,  God  helping  us,  will  make  a 
shift  to  bear. 

Not  only  is  the  presence  of  the  aged  in  itself  remedial, 
but  their  minds  are  stored  with  antidotes,  wisdom's 
simples,  plain  considerations  overlooked  by  youth. 
They  have  matter  to  communicate,  be  they  never  so 
stupid.  Their  talk  is  not  merely  literature,  it  is  great 
literature ;  classic  in  virtue  of  the  speaker's  detachment, 
studded,  like  a  book  of  travel,  with  things  we  should 
not  otherwise  have  learnt.  In  virtue,  I  have  said,  of  the 
speaker's  detachment,  —  and  this  is  why,  of  two  old 
men,  the  one  who  is  not  your  father  speaks  to  you  with 
the  more  sensible  authority ;  for  in  the  paternal  relation 
the  oldest  have  lively  interests  and  remain  still  young. 
Thus  I  have  known  two  young  men  great  friends;  each 
swore  by  the  other's  father ;  the  father  of  each  swore  by 
the  other  lad;  and  yet  each  pair  of  parent  and  child 
were  perpetually  by  the  ears.  This  is  typical :  it  reads 
like  the  germ  of  some  kindly  comedy. 

The  old  appear  in  conversation  in  two  characters:  the 
critically  silent  and  the  garrulous  anecdotic.  The  last  is 
perhaps  what  we  look  for ;  it  is  perhaps  the  more  in- 
structive. An  old  gentleman,  well  on  in  years,  sits 
handsomely  and  naturally  in  the  bow-window  of  his 
age,  scanning  experience  with  reverted  eye ;  and  chirp- 
ing and  smiling,  communicates  the  accidents  and  reads 
the  lesson  of  his  long  career.  Opinions  are  strength- 
ened, indeed,  but  they  are  also  weeded  out  in  the 
course  of  years.  What  remains  steadily  present  to  the 
eye  of  the  retired  veteran  in  his  hermitage,  what  stili 
ministers  to  his  content,  what  still  quickens  his  old 
honest  heart  —  these  are  "the  real  long-lived  things" 

284 


TALK  AND  TALKERS 

that  Whitman  tells  us  to  prefer.  Where  youth  agrees 
with  age,  not  where  they  differ,  wisdom  lies ;  and  it  is 
when  the  young  disciple  finds  his  heart  to  beat  in  tune 
with  his  grey-bearded  teacher's  that  a  lesson  may  be 
learned.  I  have  known  one  old  gentleman,  whom  I 
may  name,  for  he  is  now  gathered  to  his  stock — Robert 
Hunter,  Sheriff  of  Dumbarton,  and  author  of  an  excel- 
lent law-book  still  re-edited  and  republished.  Whether 
he  was  originally  big  or  little  is  more  than  I  can  guess. 
When  I  knew  him  he  was  all  fallen  away  and  fallen  in ; 
crooked  and  shrunken;  buckled  into  a  stiff  waistcoat 
for  support;  troubled  by  ailments,  which  kept  him 
hobbling  in  and  out  of  the  room;  one  foot  gouty;  a 
wig  for  decency,  not  for  deception,  on  his  head ;  close 
shaved,  except  under  his  chin  —  and  for  that  he  never 
failed  to  apologise,  for  it  went  sore  against  the  traditions 
of  his  life.  You  can  imagine  how  he  would  fare  in  a 
novel  by  Miss  Mather;  yet  this  rag  of  a  Chelsea  veteran 
lived  to  his  last  year  in  the  plenitude  of  all  that  is  best 
in  man,  brimming  with  human  kindness,  and  staunch 
as  a  Roman  soldier  under  his  manifold  infirmities.  You 
could  not  say  that  he  had  lost  his  memory,  for  he  would 
repeat  Shakespeare  and  Webster  and  Jeremy  Taylor  and 
Burke  by  the  page  together;  but  the  parchment  was 
filled  up,  there  was  no  room  for  fresh  inscriptions,  and 
he  was  capable  of  repeating  the  same  anecdote  on 
many  successive  visits.  His  voice  survived  in  its  full 
power,  and  he  took  a  pride  in  using  it.  On  his  last 
voyage  as  Commissioner  of  Lighthouses,  he  hailed  a 
ship  at  sea  and  made  himself  clearly  audible  without  a 
speaking  trumpet,  ruffling  the  while  with  a  proper 
vanity  in  his  achievement.     He  had  a  habit  of  eking 

285 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

out  his  words  with  interrogative  hems,  which  was 
puzzling  and  a  little  wearisome,  suited  ill  with  his  ap- 
pearance, and  seemed  a  survival  from  some  former  stage 
of  bodily  portliness.  Of  yore,  when  he  was  a  great 
pedestrian  and  no  enemy  to  good  claret,  he  may  have 
pointed  with  these  minute  guns  his  allocutions  to  the 
bench.  His  humour  was  perfectly  equable,  set  beyond 
the  reach  of  fate;  gout,  rheumatism,  stone  and  grave! 
might  have  combined  their  forces  against  that  frail  tab- 
ernacle, but  when  I  came  round  on  Sunday  evening,  he 
would  lay  aside  Jeremy  Taylor's  Life  of  Christ  and 
greet  me  with  the  same  open  brow,  the  same  kind  for- 
mality of  manner.  His  opinions  and  sympathies  dated 
the  man  almost  to  a  decade.  He  had  begun  life,  under 
his  mother's  influence,  as  an  admirer  of  Junius,  but  on 
maturer  knowledge  had  transferred  his  admiration  to 
Burke.  He  cautioned  me,  with  entire  gravity,  to  be 
punctilious  in  writing  English ;  never  to  forget  that  I 
was  a  Scotchman,  that  English  was  a  foreign  tongue, 
and  that  if  I  attempted  the  colloquial,  I  should  certainly 
be  shamed :  the  remark  was  apposite,  I  suppose,  in  the 
days  of  David  Hume.  Scott  was  too  new  for  him ;  he 
had  known  the  author  —  known  him,  too,  for  a  Tory; 
and  to  the  genuine  classic  a  contemporary  is  always 
something  of  a  trouble.  He  had  the  old,  serious  love 
of  the  play ;  had  even,  as  he  was  proud  to  tell,  played 
a  certain  part  in  the  history  of  Shakespearian  revivals, 
for  he  had  successfully  pressed  on  Murray,  of  the  old 
Edinburgh  Theatre,  the  idea  of  producing  Shakespeare's 
fairy  pieces  with  great  scenic  display.  A  moderate  in 
religion,  he  was  much  struck  in  the  last  years  of  his 
life  by  a  conversation  with  two  young  lads,  revivalists. 

286 


TALK   AND  TALKERS 

"H'm,"  he  would  say — "new  to  me.  I  have  had 
—  h'm —  no  such  experience."  It  struck  him,  not 
with  pain,  rather  with  a  solemn  philosophic  interest, 
that  he,  a  Christian  as  he  hoped,  and  a  Christian  of  so 
old  a  standing,  should  hear  these  young  fellows  talking 
of  his  own  subject,  his  own  weapons  that  he  had  fought 
the  battle  of  life  with, — "  and  — h'm  —  not  understand/' 
In  this  wise  and  graceful  attitude  he  did  justice  to  him- 
self and  others,  reposed  unshaken  in  his  old  beliefs, 
and  recognised  their  limits  without  anger  or  alarm. 
His  last  recorded  remark,  on  the  last  night  of  his  life, 
was  after  he  had  been  arguing  against  Calvinism  with 
his  minister  and  was  interrupted  by  an  intolerable  pang. 
"After  all,"  he  said,  "of  all  the  'isms,  I  know  none  so 
bad  as  rheumatism."  My  own  last  sight  of  him  was 
some  time  before,  when  we  dined  together  at  an  inn ; 
he  had  been  on  circuit,  for  he  stuck  to  his  duties  like  a 
chief  part  of  his  existence;  and  I  remember  it  as  the 
only  occasion  on  which  he  ever  soiled  his  lips  with 
slang  —  a  thing  he  loathed.  We  were  both  Roberts; 
and  as  we  took  our  places  at  table,  he  addressed  me 
with  a  twinkle:  "We  are  just  what  you  would  call 
two  bob."  He  offered  me  port,  I  remember,  as  the 
proper  milk  of  youth;  spoke  of  "twenty-shilling 
notes;"  and  throughout  the  meal  was  full  of  old-world 
pleasantry  and  quaintness,  like  an  ancient  boy  on  a  hol- 
iday. But  what  I  recall  chiefly  was  his  confession  that 
he  had  never  read  Othello  to  an  end.  Shakespeare  was 
his  continual  study.  He  loved  nothing  better  than  to 
display  his  knowledge  and  memory  by  adducing  par- 
allel passages  from  Shakespeare,  passages  where  the 
same  word  was  employed,  or  the  same  idea  differently 

287 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

treated.  But  Othello  had  beaten  him.  "That  noble 
gentleman  and  that  noble  lady  —  h'm  —  too  painful  for 
me."  The  same  night  the  hoardings  were  covered 
with  posters,  "  Burlesque  of  Othello/'  and  the  contrast 
blazed  up  in  my  mind  like  a  bonfire.  An  unforgettable 
look  it  gave  me  into  that  kind  man's  soul.  His  ac- 
quaintance was  indeed  a  liberal  and  pious  education. 
All  the  humanities  were  taught  in  that  bare  dining- 
room  beside  his  gouty  footstool.  He  was  a  piece  of 
good  advice ;  he  was  himself  the  instance  that  pointed 
and  adorned  his  various  talk.  Nor  could  a  young  man 
have  found  elsewhere  a  place  so  set  apart  from  envy, 
fear,  discontent,  or  any  of  the  passions  that  debase ;  a 
life  so  honest  and  composed;  a  soul  like  an  ancient  vio- 
lin, so  subdued  to  harmony,  responding  to  a  touch  in 
music  —  as  in  that  dining-room,  with  Mr.  Hunter  chat- 
ting at  the  eleventh  hour,  under  the  shadow  of  eternity, 
fearless  and  gentle. 

The  second  class  of  old  people  are  not  anecdotic;  they 
are  rather  hearers  than  talkers,  listening  to  the  young 
with  an  amused  and  critical  attention.  To  have  this 
sort  of  intercourse  to  perfection,  I  think  we  must  go  to 
old  ladies.  Women  are  better  hearers  than  men,  to  be- 
gin with ;  they  learn,  I  fear  in  anguish,  to  bear  with  the 
tedious  and  infantile  vanity  of  the  other  sex;  and  we 
will  take  more  from  a  woman  than  even  from  the  old- 
est man  in  the  way  of  biting  comment.  Biting  com- 
ment is  the  chief  part,  whether  for  profit  or  amusement, 
in  this  business.  The  old  lady  that  I  have  in  my  eye  is 
a  very  caustic  speaker,  her  tongue,  after  years  of  prac- 
tice, in  absolute  command,  whether  for  silence  or  at- 
tack.    If  she  chance  to  dislike  you,  you  will  be  tempted 

288 


TALK  AND   TALKERS 

to  curse  the  malignity  of  age.  But  if  you  chance  to 
please  even  slightly,  you  will  be  listened  to  with  a  par- 
ticular laughing  grace  of  sympathy,  and  from  time  to 
time  chastised,  as  if  in  play,  with  a  parasol  as  heavy  as 
a  pole-axe.  It  requires  a  singular  art,  as  well  as  the 
vantage-ground  of  age,  to  deal  these  stunning  correc- 
tions among  the  coxcombs  of  the  young.  The  pill  is 
disguised  in  sugar  of  wit;  it  is  administered  as  a  com- 
pliment—  if  you  had  not  pleased,  you  would  not  have 
been  censured ;  it  is  a  personal  affair —  a  hyphen,  a  trait 
d 'union,  between  you  and  your  censor;  age's  philan- 
dering, for  her  pleasure  and  your  good.  Incontestably 
the  young  man  feels  very  much  of  a  fool;  but  he  must 
be  a  perfect  Malvolio,  sick  with  self-love,  if  he  cannot 
take  an  open  buffet  and  still  smile.  The  correction  of 
silence  is  what  kills;  when  you  know  you  have  trans- 
gressed, and  your  friend  says  nothing  and  avoids  your 
eye.  If  a  man  were  made  of  gutta-percha,  his  heart 
would  quail  at  such  a  moment.  But  when  the  word  is 
out,  the  worst  is  over ;  and  a  fellow  with  any  good-hu- 
mour at  all  may  pass  through  a  perfect  hail  of  witty 
criticism,  every  bare  place  on  his  soul  hit  to  the  quick 
with  a  shrewd  missile,  and  reappear,  as  if  after  a  dive, 
tingling  with  a  fine  moral  reaction,  and  ready,  with  a 
shrinking  readiness,  one-third  loath,  for  a  repetition  of 
the  discipline. 

There  are  few  women,  not  well  sunned  and  ripened, 
and  perhaps  toughened,  who  can  thus  stand  apart  from 
a  man  and  say  the  true  thing  with  a  kind  of  genial  cru- 
elty. Still  there  are  some  —  and  I  doubt  if  there  be  any 
man  who  can  return  the  compliment.  The  class  of 
man  represented  by  Vernon  Whitford  in  The  Egoist 

289 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

says,  indeed,  the  true  thing,  but  he  says  it  stockishly. 
Vernon  is  a  noble  fellow,  and  makes,  by  the  way,  a 
noble  and  instructive  contrast  to  Daniel  Deronda;  his 
conduct  is  the  conduct  of  a  man  of  honour;  but  we 
agree  with  him,  against  our  consciences,  when  he  re- 
morsefully considers  "its  astonishing  dryness."  He  is 
the  best  of  men,  but  the  best  of  women  manage  to  com- 
bine all  that  and  something  more.  Their  very  faults 
assist  them ;  they  are  helped  even  by  the  falseness  of 
their  position  in  life.  They  can  retire  into  the  fortified 
camp  of  the  proprieties.  They  can  touch  a  subject  and 
suppress  it.  The  most  adroit  employ  a  somewhat  elab- 
orate reserve  as  a  means  to  be  frank,  much  as  they  wear 
gloves  when  they  shake  hands.  But  a  man  has  the  fuM 
responsibility  of  his  freedom,  cannot  evade  a  question, 
can  scarce  be  silent  without  rudeness,  must  answer  for 
his  words  upon  the  moment,  and  is  not  seldom  left  face 
to  face  with  a  damning  choice,  between  the  more  or 
less  dishonourable  wriggling  of  Deronda  and  the  down- 
right woodenness  of  Vernon  Whitford. 

But  the  superiority  of  women  is  perpetually  menaced; 
they  do  not  sit  throned  on  infirmities  like  the  old;  they 
are  suitors  as  well  as  sovereigns ;  their  vanity  is  engaged, 
their  affections  are  too  apt  to  follow;  and  hence  much 
of  the  talk  between  the  sexes  degenerates  into  something 
unworthy  of  the  name.  The  desire  to  please,  to  shine 
with  a  certain  softness  of  lustre  and  to  draw  a  fasci- 
nating picture  of  oneself,  banishes  from  conversation  all 
that  is  sterling  and  most  of  what  is  humorous.  As  soon 
as  a  strong  current  of  mutual  admiration  begins  to  flow, 
the  human  interest  triumphs  entirely  over  the  intellec- 
tual, and  the  commerce  of  words,  consciously  or  not, 

290 


TALK   AND   TALKERS 

becomes  secondary  to  the  commercing  of  eyes.  But 
even  where  this  ridiculous  danger  is  avoided,  and  a  man 
and  woman  converse  equally  and  honestly,  something 
in  their  nature  or  their  education  falsifies  the  strain.  An 
instinct  prompts  them  to  agree ;  and  where  that  is  im- 
possible, to  agree  to  differ.  Should  they  neglect  the 
warning,  at  the  first  suspicion  of  an  argument,  they  find 
themselves  in  different  hemispheres.  About  any  point 
of  business  or  conduct,  any  actual  affair  demanding  set- 
tlement, a  woman  will  speak  and  listen,  hear  and  answer 
arguments,  not  only  with  natural  wisdom,  but  with 
candour  and  logical  honesty.  But  if  the  subject  of  de- 
bate be  something  in  the  air,  an  abstraction,  an  excuse 
for  talk,  a  logical  Aunt  Sally,  then  may  the  male  debater 
instantly  abandon  hope ;  he  may  employ  reason,  adduce 
facts,  be  supple,  be  smiling,  be  angry,  all  shall  avail  him 
nothing;  what  the  woman  said  first,  that  (unless  she 
has  forgotten  it)  she  will  repeat  at  the  end.  Hence,  at 
the  very  junctures  when  a  talk  between  men  grows 
brighter  and  quicker  and  begins  to  promise  to  bear  fruit, 
talk  between  the  sexes  is  menaced  with  dissolution. 
The  point  of  difference,  the  point  of  interest,  is  evaded 
by  the  brilliant  woman,  under  a  shower  of  irrelevant 
conversational  rockets;  it  is  bridged  by  the  discreet 
woman  with  a  rustle  of  silk,  as  she  passes  smoothly 
forward  to  the  nearest  point  of  safety.  And  this  sort  of 
prestidigitation,  juggling  the  dangerous  topic  out  of 
sight  until  it  can  be  reintroduced  with  safety  in  an  al- 
tered shape,  is  a  piece  of  tactics  among  the  true  drawing- 
room  queens. 

The  drawing-room  is,  indeed,  an  artificial  place ;  it  is 
so  by  our  choice  and  for  our  sins.     The  subjection  of 

291 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

women ;  the  ideal  imposed  upon  them  from  the  cradle, 
and  worn,  like  a  hair-shirt,  with  so  much  constancy; 
their  motherly,  superior  tenderness  to  man's  vanity  and 
self-importance;  their  managing  arts  —  the  arts  of  a  civ- 
ilised slave  among  good-natured  barbarians  —  are  all 
painful  ingredients  and  all  help  to  falsify  relations.  It  is 
not  till  we  get  clear  of  that  amusing  artificial  scene  that 
genuine  relations  are  founded,  or  ideas  honestly  com- 
pared. In  the  garden,  on  the  road  or  the  hillside,  or 
ttte-a-tete  and  apart  from  interruptions,  occasions  arise 
when  we  may  learn  much  from  any  single  woman ;  and 
nowhere  more  often  than  in  married  life.  Marriage  is 
one  long  conversation,  chequered  by  disputes.  The 
disputes  are  valueless ;  they  but  ingrain  the  difference ; 
the  heroic  heart  of  woman  prompting  her  at  once  to  nail 
her  colours  to  the  mast.  But  in  the  intervals,  almost 
unconsciously  and  with  no  desire  to  shine,  the  whole 
material  of  life  is  turned  over  and  over,  ideas  are  struck 
out  and  shared,  the  two  persons  more  and  more  adapt 
their  notions  one  to  suit  the  other,  and  in  process  of 
time,  without  sound  of  trumpet,  they  conduct  each  other 
into  new  worlds  of  thought. 


292 


XII.   THE  CHARACTER  OF  DOGS 

THE  civilisation,  the  manners,  and  the  morals  of  dog- 
kind  are  to  a  great  extent  subordinated  to  those  of 
his  ancestral  master,  man.  This  animal,  in  many  ways 
so  superior,  has  accepted  a  position  of  inferiority,  shares 
the  domestic  life,  and  humours  the  caprices  of  the  tyrant. 
But  the  potentate,  like  the  British  in  India,  pays  small 
regard  to  the  character  of  his  willing  client,  judges  him 
with  listless  glances,  and  condemns  him  in  a  byword. 
Listless  have  been  the  looks  of  his  admirers,  who  have 
exhausted  idle  terms  of  praise,  and  buried  the  poor  soul 
below  exaggerations.  And  yet  more  idle  and,  if  possi- 
ble, more  unintelligent  has  been  the  attitude  of  his  ex- 
press detractors ;  those  who  are  very  fond  of  dogs  ' '  but 
in  their  proper  place";  who  say  "poo'  fellow,  poo' 
fellow,"  and  are  themselves  far  poorer;  who  whet  the 
knife  of  the  vivisectionist  or  heat  his  oven ;  who  are  not 
ashamed  to  admire  "the  creature's  instinct " ;  and  flying 
far  beyond  folly,  have  dared  to  resuscitate  the  theory  of 
animal  machines.  The  "dog's  instinct"  and  the  "au- 
tomaton-dog," in  this  age  of  psychology  and  science, 
sound  like  strange  anachronisms.  An  automaton  he 
certainly  is;  a  machine  working  independently  of  his 
control,  the  heart  like  the  mill-wheel,  keeping  all  in 

291 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

motion,  and  the  consciousness,  like  a  person  shut  in  the 
mill  garret,  enjoying  the  view  out  of  the  window  and 
shaken  by  the  thunder  of  the  stones ;  an  automaton  in 
one  corner  of  which  a  living  spirit  is  confined :  an  au- 
tomaton like  man.  Instinct  again  he  certainly  possesses. 
Inherited  aptitudes  are  his,  inherited  frailties.  Some 
things  he  at  once  views  and  understands,  as  though  he 
were  awakened  from  a  sleep,  as  though  he  came  "  trail- 
ing clouds  of  glory."  But  with  him,  as  with  man,  the 
field  of  instinct  is  limited ;  its  utterances  are  obscure  and 
occasional ;  and  about  the  far  larger  part  of  life  both  the 
dog  and  his  master  must  conduct  their  steps  by  deduc- 
tion and  observation. 

The  leading  distinction  between  dog  and  man,  after 
and  perhaps  before  the  different  duration  of  their  lives, 
is  that  the  one  can  speak  and  that  the  other  cannot. 
The  absence  of  the  power  of  speech  confines  the  dog 
in  the  development  of  his  intellect.  It  hinders  him 
from  many  speculations,  for  words  are  the  beginning 
of  metaphysic.  At  the  same  blow  it  saves  him  from 
many  superstitions,  and  his  silence  has  won  for  him  a 
higher  name  for  virtue  than  his  conduct  justifies.  The 
faults  of  the  dog  are  many.  He  is  vainer  than  man, 
singularly  greedy  of  notice,  singularly  intolerant  of  rid- 
icule, suspicious  like  the  deaf,  jealous  to  the  degree  of 
frenzy,  and  radically  devoid  of  truth.  The  day  of  an 
intelligent  small  dog  is  passed  in  the  manufacture  and 
the  laborious  communication  of  falsehood ;  he  lies  with 
his  tail,  he  lies  with  his  eye,  he  lies  with  his  protesting 
paw;  and  when  he  rattles  his  dish  or  scratches  at  the 
door  his  purpose  is  other  than  appears.  But  he  has 
some  apology  to  offer  for  the  vice.     Many  of  the  signs 

-9\ 


THE  CHARACTER  OF   DOGS 

which  form  his  dialect  have  come  to  bear  an  arbitrary 
meaning,  clearly  understood  both  by  his  master  and 
himself;  yet  when  a  new  want  arises  he  must  either 
invent  a  new  vehicle  of  meaning  or  wrest  an  old  one  to 
a  different  purpose;  and  this  necessity  frequently  re- 
curring must  tend  to  lessen  his  idea  of  the  sanctity  of 
symbols.  Meanwhile  the  dog  is  clear  in  his  own  con- 
science, and  draws,  with  a  human  nicety,  the  distinc- 
tion between  formal  and  essential  truth.  Of  his  pun- 
ning perversions,  his  legitimate  dexterity  with  symbols, 
he  is  even  vain ;  but  when  he  has  told  and  been  detected 
in  a  lie,  there  is  not  a  hair  upon  his  body  but  confesses 
guilt.  To  a  dog  of  gentlemanly  feeling  theft  and  false- 
hood are  disgraceful  vices.  The  canine,  like  the  human, 
gentleman  demands  in  his  misdemeanours  Montaigne's 
"je  ne  sais  quoi  de  genereux. "  He  is  never  more  than 
half  ashamed  of  having  barked  or  bitten ;  and  for  those 
faults  into  which  he  has  been  led  by  the  desire  to  shine 
before  a  lady  of  his  race,  he  retains,  even  under  physi- 
cal correction,  a  share  of  pride.  But  to  be  caught  lying, 
if  he  understands  it,  instantly  uncurls  his  fleece. 

Just  as  among  dull  observers  he  preserves  a  name  for 
truth,  the  dog  has  been  credited  with  modesty.  It  is 
amazing  how  the  use  of  language  blunts  the  faculties  of 
man  —  that  because  vainglory  finds  no  vent  in  words, 
creatures  supplied  with  eyes  have  been  unable  to  de- 
tect a  fault  so  gross  and  obvious.  If  a  small  spoiled 
dog  were  suddenly  to  be  endowed  with  speech,  he 
would  prate  interminably,  and  still  about  himself;  when 
we  had  friends,  we  should  be  forced  to  lock  him  in  a 
garret;  and  what  with  his  whining  jealousies  and  his 
foible  for  falsehood,  in  a  year's  time  he  would  have  gone 

295 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

far  to  weary  out  our  love.  I  was  about  to  compare  him 
to  Sir  Willoughby  Patterne,  but  the  Patternes  have  a 
manlier  sense  of  their  own  merits ;  and  the  parallel,  be- 
sides, is  ready.  Hans  Christian  Andersen,  as  we  behold 
him  in  his  startling  memoirs,  thrilling  from  top  to  toe 
with  an  excruciating  vanity,  and  scouting  even  along 
the  street  for  shadows  of  offence  —  here  was  the  talk- 
ing dog. 

It  is  just  this  rage  for  consideration  that  has  betrayed 
the  dog  into  his  satellite  position  as  the  friend  of  man. 
The  cat,  an  animal  of  franker  appetites,  preserves  his 
independence.  But  the  dog,  with  one  eye  ever  on  the 
audience,  has  been  wheedled  into  slavery,  and  praised 
and  patted  into  the  renunciation  of  his  nature.  Once 
he  ceased  hunting  and  became  man's  plate-licker,  the 
Rubicon  was  crossed.  Thenceforth  he  was  a  gentle- 
man of  leisure ;  and  except  the  few  whom  we  keep 
working,  the  whole  race  grew  more  and  more  self- 
conscious,  mannered  and  affected.  The  number  of 
things  that  a  small  dog  does  naturally  is  strangely  small. 
Enjoying  better  spirits  and  not  crushed  under  material 
cares,  he  is  far  more  theatrical  than  average  man.  His 
whole  life,  if  he  be  a  dog  of  any  pretension  to  gallantry, 
is  spent  in  a  vain  show,  and  in  the  hot  pursuit  of  admi- 
ration. Take  out  your  puppy  for  a  walk,  and  you  will 
find  the  little  ball  of  fur  clumsy,  stupid,  bewildered, 
but  natural.  Let  but  a  few  months  pass,  and  when 
you  repeat  the  process  you  will  find  nature  buried  in 
convention.  He  will  do  nothing  plainly;  but  the  sim- 
plest processes  of  our  material  life  will  all  be  bent  into 
the  forms  of  an  elaborate  and  mysterious  etiquette.  In- 
stinct, says  the  fool,  has  awakened.     But  it  is  not  so. 

296 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  DOGS 

Some  dogs  —  some,  at  the  very  least  —  if  they  be  kept 
separate  from  others,  remain  quite  natural ;  and  these, 
when  at  length  they  meet  with  a  companion  of  experi- 
ence, and  have  the  game  explained  to  them,  distinguish 
themselves  by  the  severity  of  their  devotion  to  its  rules. 
I  wish  I  were  allowed  to  tell  a  story  which  would  radi- 
antly illuminate  the  point;  but  men,  like  dogs,  have  an 
elaborate  and  mysterious  etiquette.  It  is  their  bond  of 
sympathy  that  both  are  the  children  of  convention. 

The  person,  man  or  dog,  who  has  a  conscience  is 
eternally  condemned  to  some  degree  of  humbug;  the 
sense  of  the  law  in  their  members  fatally  precipitates 
either  towards  a  frozen  and  affected  bearing.  And  the 
converse  is  true;  and  in  the  elaborate  and  conscious 
manners  of  the  dog,  moral  opinions  and  the  love  of  the 
ideal  stand  confessed.  To  follow  for  ten  minutes  in  the 
street  some  sv/aggering,  canine  cavalier,  is  to  receive  a 
lesson  in  dramatic  art  and  the  cultured  conduct  of  the 
body ;  in  every  act  and  gesture  you  see  him  true  to  a  re- 
fined conception;  and  the  dullest  cur,  beholding  him, 
pricks  up  his  ear  and  proceeds  to  imitate  and  parody 
that  charming  ease.  For  to  be  a  high-mannered  and 
high-minded  gentleman,  careless,  affable,  and  gay,  is 
the  inborn  pretension  of  the  dog.  The  large  dog,  so 
much  lazier,  so  much  more  weighed  upon  with  matter, 
so  majestic  in  repose,  so  beautiful  in  effort,  is  born  with 
the  dramatic  means  to  wholly  represent  the  part.  And 
it  is  more  pathetic  and  perhaps  more  instructive  to  con- 
sider the  small  dog  in  his  conscientious  and  imperfect 
efforts  to  outdo  Sir  Philip  Sidney.  For  the  ideal  of  the 
dog  is  feudal  and  religious;  the  ever-present  polythe- 
ism, the  whip-bearing  Olympus  of  mankind,  rules  them 

297 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

on  the  one  hand ;  on  the  other,  their  singular  difference 
of  size  and  strength  among  themselves  effectually  pre- 
vents the  appearance  of  the  democratic  notion.  Or  we 
might  more  exactly  compare  their  society  to  the  curious 
spectacle  presented  by  a  school  —  ushers,  monitors,  and 
big  and  little  boys  —  qualified  by  one  circumstance,  the 
introduction  of  the  other  sex.  In  each,  we  should  ob- 
serve a  somewhat  similar  tension  of  manner,  and  some- 
what similar  points  of  honour.  In  each  the  larger  animal 
keeps  a  contemptuous  good  humour;  in  each  the  smaller 
annoys  him  with  wasp-like  impudence,  certain  of  prac- 
tical immunity ;  in  each  we  shall  find  a  double  life  pro- 
ducing double  characters,  and  an  excursive  and  noisy 
heroism  combined  with  a  fair  amount  of  practical  timid- 
ity. I  have  known  dogs,  and  I  have  known  school 
heroes  that,  set  aside  the  fur,  could  hardly  have  been 
told  apart;  and  if  we  desire  to  understand  the  chivalry 
of  old,  we  must  turn  to  the  school  playfields  or  the 
dungheap  where  the  dogs  are  trooping. 

Woman,  with  the  dog,  has  been  long  enfranchised. 
Incessant  massacre  of  female  innocents  has  changed  the 
proportions  of  the  sexes  and  perverted  their  relations. 
Thus,  when  we  regard  the  manners  of  the  dog,  we  see 
a  romantic  and  monogamous  animal,  once  perhaps  as 
delicate  as  the  cat,  at  war  with  impossible  conditions. 
Man  has  much  to  answer  for;  and  the  part  he  plays  is 
yet  more  damnable  and  parlous  than  Corin's  in  the  eyes 
of  Touchstone.  But  his  intervention  has  at  least  created 
an  imperial  situation  for  the  rare  surviving  ladies.  In 
that  society  they  reign  without  a  rival :  conscious  queens ; 
and  in  the  only  instance  of  a  canine  wife-beater  that  has 
ever  fallen  under  my  notice,  the  criminal  was  somewhat 

298 


THE  CHARACTER  OF   DOGS 

excused  by  the  circumstances  of  his  story.  He  is  a  lit- 
tle, very  alert,  well-bred,  intelligent  Skye,  as  black  as 
a  hat,  with  a  wet  bramble  for  a  nose  and  two  cairn- 
gorms for  eyes.  To  the  human  observer,  he  is  decidedly 
well-looking;  but  to  the  ladies  of  his  race  he  seems  ab- 
horrent. A  thorough  elaborate  gentleman,  of  the  plume 
and  sword-knot  order,  he  was  born  with  a  nice  sense 
of  gallantry  to  women.  He  took  at  their  hands  the 
most  outrageous  treatment ;  I  have  heard  him  bleating 
like  a  sheep,  I  have  seen  him  streaming  blood,  and  his 
ear  tattered  like  a  regimental  banner;  and  yet  he  would 
scorn  to  make  reprisals.  Nay  more,  when  a  human 
lady  upraised  the  contumelious  whip  against  the  very 
dame  who  had  been  so  cruelly  misusing  him,  my  little 
great-heart  gave  but  one  hoarse  cry  and  fell  upon  the 
tyrant  tooth  and  nail.  This  is  the  tale  of  a  soul's  trag- 
edy. After  three  years  of  unavailing  chivalry,  he  sud- 
denly, in  one  hour,  threw  off  the  yoke  of  obligation ; 
had  he  been  Shakespeare  he  would  then  have  written 
Trottm  and  Cressida  to  brand  the  offending  sex;  but 
being  only  a  little  dog,  he  began  to  bite  them.  The 
surprise  of  the  ladies  whom  he  attacked  indicated  the 
monstrosity  of  his  offence ;  but  he  had  fairly  beaten  off 
his  better  angel,  fairly  committed  moral  suicide;  for  al- 
most in  the  same  hour,  throwing  aside  the  last  rags  of 
decency,  he  proceeded  to  attack  the  aged  also.  The  fact 
is  worth  remark,  showing,  as  it  does,  that  ethical  laws 
are  common  both  to  dogs  and  men ;  and  that  with  both 
a  single  deliberate  violation  of  the  conscience  loosens  all. 
"  But  while  the  lamp  holds  on  to  burn,"  says  the  para- 
phrase, u  the  greatest  sinner  may  return."  I  have  been 
cheered  to  see  symptoms  of  effectual  penitence  in  my 

299 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

sweet  ruffian ;  and  by  the  handling  that  he  accepted  un- 
complainingly the  other  day  from  an  indignant  fair  one, 
I  begin  to  hope  the  period  of  Sturm  und  Drang  is 
closed. 

All  these  little  gentlemen  are  subtle  casuists.  The 
duty  to  the  female  dog  is  plain ;  but  where  competing 
duties  rise,  down  they  will  sit  and  study  them  out,  like 
Jesuit  confessors.  I  knew  another  little  Skye,  some- 
what plain  in  manner  and  appearance,  but  a  creature 
compact  of  amiability  and  solid  wisdom.  His  family 
going  abroad  for  a  winter,  he  was  received  for  that 
period  by  an  uncle  in  the  same  city.  The  winter  over, 
his  own  family  home  again,  and  his  own  house  (of 
which  he  was  very  proud)  reopened,  he  found  himself 
in  a  dilemma  between  two  conflicting  duties  of  loyalty 
and  gratitude.  His  old  friends  were  not  to  be  neg- 
lected, but  it  seemed  hardly  decent  to  desert  the  new. 
This  was  how  he  solved  the  problem.  Every  morning, 
as  soon  as  the  door  was  opened,  off  posted  Coolin  to 
his  uncle's,  visited  the  children  in  the  nursery,  saluted 
the  whole  family,  and  was  back  at  home  in  time  for 
breakfast  and  his  bit  of  fish.  Nor  was  this  done  with- 
out a  sacrifice  on  his  part,  sharply  felt ;  for  he  had  to 
forego  the  particular  honour  and  jewel  of  his  day  —  his 
morning's  walk  with  my  father.  And,  perhaps  from 
this  cause,  he  gradually  wearied  of  and  relaxed  the  prac- 
tice, and  at  length  returned  entirely  to  his  ancient  hab- 
its. But  the  same  decision  served  him  in  another  and 
more  distressing  case  of  divided  duty,  which  happened 
not  long  after.  He  was  not  at  all  a  kitchen  dog,  but  the 
cook  had  nursed  him  with  unusual  kindness  during  the 
distemper;   and  though  he  did  not  adore  her  as  he 

300 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  DOGS 

adored  my  father — although  (born  snob)  he  was  criti- 
cally conscious  of  her  position  as  "  only  a  servant  "  — 
he  still  cherished  for  her  a  special  gratitude.  Well,  the 
cook  left,  and  retired  some  streets  away  to  lodgings  of 
her  own ;  and  there  was  Coolin  in  precisely  the  same 
situation  with  any  young  gentleman  who  has  had  the 
inestimable  benefit  of  a  faithful  nurse.  The  canine 
conscience  did  not  solve  the  problem  with  a  pound  of 
tea  at  Christmas.  No  longer  content  to  pay  a  flying 
visit,  it  was  the  whole  forenoon  that  he  dedicated  to  his 
solitary  friend.  And  so,  day  by  day,  he  continued  to 
comfort  her  solitude  until  (for  some  reason  which  I 
could  never  understand  and  cannot  approve)  he  was 
kept  locked  up  to  break  him  of  the  graceful  habit.  Here, 
it  is  not  the  similarity,  it  is  the  difference,  that  is  worthy 
of  remark;  the  clearly  marked  degrees  of  gratitude 
and  the  proportional  duration  of  his  visits.  Anything 
further  removed  from  instinct  it  were  hard  to  fancy  ; 
and  one  is  even  stirred  to  a  certain  impatience  with 
a  character  so  destitute  of  spontaneity,  so  passionless 
in  justice,  and  so  priggishly  obedient  to  the  voice  of 
reason. 

There  are  not  many  dogs  like  this  good  Coolin,  and 
not  many  people.  But  the  type  is  one  well  marked, 
both  in  the  human  and  the  canine  family.  Gallantry 
was  not  his  aim,  but  a  solid  and  somewhat  oppressive 
respectability.  He  was  a  sworn  foe  to  the  unusual  and 
the  conspicuous,  a  praiser  of  the  golden  mean,  a  kind 
of  city  uncle  modified  by  Cheeryble.  And  as  he  was 
precise  and  conscientious  in  all  the  steps  of  his  own 
blameless  course,  he  looked  for  the  same  precision  and 
an  even  greater  gravity  in  the  bearing  of  his  deity,  my 

301 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

father.  It  was  no  sinecure  to  be  Coolin's  idol :  he  was 
exacting  like  a  rigid  parent;  and  at  every  sign  of  levity 
in  the  man  whom  he  respected,  he  announced  loudly 
the  death  of  virtue  and  the  proximate  fall  of  the  pillars 
of  the  earth. 

I  have  called  him  a  snob ;  but  all  dogs  are  so,  though 
in  varying  degrees.  It  is  hard  to  follow  their  snobbery 
among  themselves;  for  though  I  think  we  can  perceive 
distinctions  of  rank,  we  cannot  grasp  what  is  the  crite- 
rion. Thus  in  Edinburgh,  in  a  good  part  of  the  town, 
there  were  several  distinct  societies  or  clubs  that  met  in 
the  morning  to  —  the  phrase  is  technical  —  to  "  rake  the 
backets  "  in  a  troop.  A  friend  of  mine,  the  master  of 
three  dogs,  was  one  day  surprised  to  observe  that  they 
had  left  one  club  and  joined  another;  but  whether  it 
was  a  rise  or  a  fall,  and  the  result  of  an  invitation  or  an 
expulsion,  was  more  than  he  could  guess.  And  this 
illustrates  pointedly  our  ignorance  of  the  real  life  of 
dogs,  their  social  ambitions  and  their  social  hierarchies. 
At  least,  in  their  dealings  with  men  they  are  not  only 
conscious  of  sex,  but  of  the  difference  of  station.  And 
that  in  the  most  snobbish  manner;  for  the  poor  man's 
dog  is  not  offended  by  the  notice  of  the  rich,  and  keeps 
all  his  ugly  feeling  for  those  poorer  or  more  ragged  than 
his  master.  And  again,  for  every  station  they  have  an 
ideal  of  behaviour,  to  which  the  master,  under  pain  of 
derogation,  will  do  wisely  to  conform.  How  often  has 
not  a  cold  glance  of  an  eye  informed  me  that  my  dog 
was  disappointed ;  and  how  much  more  gladly  would 
he  not  have  taken  a  beating  than  to  be  thus  wounded 
in  the  seat  of  piety ! 

I  knew  one  disrespectable  dog.  He  was  far  liker  a 
302 


THE   CHARACTER  OF   DOGS 

cat;  cared  little  or  nothing  for  men,  with  whom  he 
merely  coexisted  as  we  do  with  cattle,  and  was  entirely 
devoted  to  the  art  of  poaching.  A  house  would  not 
hold  him,  and  to  live  in  a  town  was  what  he  refused. 
He  led,  I  believe,  a  life  of  troubled  but  genuine  pleasure, 
and  perished  beyond  all  question  in  a  trap.  But  this 
was  an  exception,  a  marked  reversion  to  the  ancestral 
type;  like  the  hairy  human  infant.  The  true  dog  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  to  judge  by  the  remainder  of  my 
fairly  large  acquaintance,  is  in  love  with  respectability. 
A  street-dog  was  once  adopted  by  a  lady.  While  still 
an  Arab,  he  had  done  as  Arabs  do,  gambolling  in  the 
mud,  charging  into  butchers'  stalls,  a  cat-hunter,  a 
sturdy  beggar,  a  common  rogue  and  vagabond;  but 
with  his  rise  into  society  he  laid  aside  these  inconsistent 
pleasures.  He  stole  no  more,  he  hunted  no  more  cats; 
and  conscious  of  his  collar,  he  ignored  his  old  compan- 
ions. Yet  the  canine  upper  class  was  never  brought  to 
recognize  the  upstart,  and  from  that  hour,  except  for 
human  countenance,  he  was  alone.  Friendless,  shorn 
of  his  sports  and  the  habits  of  a  lifetime,  he  still  lived  in 
a  glory  of  happiness,  content  with  his  acquired  respecta- 
bility, and  with  no  care  but  to  support  it  solemnly. 
Are  we  to  condemn  or  praise  this  self-made  dog  ?  We 
praise  his  human  brother.  And  thus  to  conquer  vicious 
habits  is  as  rare  with  dogs  as  with  men.  With  the 
more  part,  for  all  their  scruple-mongering  and  moral 
thought,  the  vices  that  are  born  with  them  remain  in- 
vincible throughout;  and  they  live  all  their  years,  glory- 
ing in  their  virtues,  but  still  the  slaves  of  their  defects. 
Thus  the  sage  Coolin  was  a  thief  to  the  last;  among  a 
thousand  peccadilloes,  a  whole  goose  and  a  whole  cold 

303 


MEMORIES   AND    PORTRAITS 

leg  of  mutton  lay  upon  his  conscience;  but  Woggs,1 
whose  soul's  shipwreck  in  the  matter  of  gallantry  I  have 
recounted  above,  has  only  twice  been  known  to  steal, 
and  has  often  nobly  conquered  the  temptation.  The 
eighth  is  his  favourite  commandment.  There  is  some- 
thing painfully  human  in  these  unequal  virtues  and  mor- 
tal frailties  of  the  best.  Still  more  painful  is  the  bearing 
of  those  "stammering  professors  "  in  the  house  of  sick- 
ness and  under  the  terror  of  death.  It  is  beyond  a 
doubt  to  me  that,  somehow  or  other,  the  dog  connects 
together,  or  confounds,  the  uneasiness  of  sickness  and 
the  consciousness  of  guilt.  To  the  pains  of  the  body 
he  often  adds  the  tortures  of  the  conscience;  and  at 
these  times  his  haggard  protestations  form,  in  regard  to 
the  human  deathbed,  a  dreadful  parody  or  parallel. 

I  once  supposed  that  I  had  found  an  inverse  relation 
between  the  double  etiquette  which  dogs  obey;  and 
that  those  who  were  most  addicted  to  the  showy  street 
life  among  other  dogs  were  less  careful  in  the  practice 
of  home  virtues  for  the  tyrant  man.  But  the  female 
dog,  that  mass  of  carneying  affectations,  shines  equally 
in  either  sphere;  rules  her  rough  posse  of  attendant 
swains  with  unwearying  tact  and  gusto ;  and  with  her 
master  and  mistress  pushes  the  arts  of  insinuation  to 
their  crowning  point.  The  attention  of  man  and  the 
regard  of  other  dogs  flatter  (it  would  thus  appear)  the 
same  sensibility ;  but  perhaps,  if  we  could  read  the 
canine  heart,  they  would  be  found  to  flatter  it  in  very 

1  Walter,  Watty,  Woggy,  Woggs,  Wogg,  and  lastly  Bogue;  under 
which  last  name  he  fell  in  battle  some  twelve  months  ago.  Glory  was 
his  aim  and  he  attained  it ;  for  his  icon,  by  the  hand  of  Caldecott,  now 
lies  among  the  treasures  of  the  nation. 

304 


THE  CHARACTER  OF   DOGS 

different  degrees.  Dogs  live  with  man  as  courtiers 
round  a  monarch,  steeped  in  the  flattery  of  his  notice 
and  enriched  with  sinecures.  To  push  their  favour  in 
this  world  of  pickings  and  caresses  is,  perhaps,  the  busi- 
ness of  their  lives ;  and  their  joys  may  lie  outside.  I  am 
in  despair  at  our  persistent  ignorance.  I  read  in  the 
lives  of  our  companions  the  same  processes  of  reason, 
the  same  antique  and  fatal  conflicts  of  the  right  against 
the  wrong,  and  of  unbitted  nature  with  too  rigid  custom ; 
1  see  them  with  our  weaknesses,  vain,  false,  inconstant 
against  appetite,  and  with  our  one  stalk  of  virtue,  de- 
voted to  the  dream  of  an  ideal ;  and  yet,  as  they  hurry 
by  me  on  the  street  with  tail  in  air,  or  come  singly  to 
solicit  my  regard,  I  must  own  the  secret  purport  of  their 
lives  is  still  inscrutable  to  man.  Is  man  the  friend,  or  is 
he  the  patron  only  ?  Have  they  indeed  forgotten  na- 
ture's voice?  or  are  those  moments  snatched  from 
courtiership  when  they  touch  noses  with  the  tinker's 
mongrel,  the  brief  reward  and  pleasure  of  their  artificial 
lives  ?  Doubtless,  when  man  shares  with  his  dog  the 
toils  of  a  profession  and  the  pleasures  of  an  art,  as  with 
the  shepherd  or  the  poacher,  the  affection  warms  and 
strengthens  till  it  fills  the  soul.  But  doubtless,  also,  the 
masters  are,  in  many  cases,  the  object  of  a  merely  in- 
terested cultus,  sitting  aloft  like  Louis  Quatorze,  giving 
and  receiving  flattery  and  favour;  and  the  dogs,  like 
the  majority  of  men,  have  but  foregone  their  true  exist- 
ence and  become  the  dupes  of  their  ambition. 


305 


XIII.  "a  penny  plain  and  twopence  coloured  " 


THESE  words  will  be  familiar  to  all  students  of 
Skelt's  Juvenile  Drama.  That  national  monu- 
ment, after  having  changed  its  name  to  Park's,  to 
Webb's,  to  Redington's,  and  last  of  all  to  Pollock's, 
has  now  become,  for  the  most  part,  a  memory.  Some 
of  its  pillars,  like  Stonehenge,  are  still  afoot,  the  rest 
clean  vanished.  It  may  be  the  Museum  numbers  a  full 
set;  and  Mr.  Ionides  perhaps,  or  else  her  gracious 
Majesty,  may  boast  their  great  collections;  but  to  the 
plain  private  person  they  are  become,  like  Raphaels, 
unattainable.  I  have,  at  different  times,  possessed 
Aladdin,  The  Red  Rover,  The  Blind  Boy,  The  Old  Oak 
Chest,  The  Wood  Dcemon,  Jack  Sheppard,  The  Miller 
and  his  Men,  Der  Freischut^,  The  Smuggler,  The  For- 
est of  Bondy,  Robin  Hood,  The  Waterman,  Richard  L, 
My  Poll  and  my  Partner  Joe,  The  Inchcape  Bell  ( im- 
perfect ),  and  Three-Fingered  Jack,  the  Terror  of  Ja- 
maica; and  I  have  assisted  others  in  the  illumination  of 
The  Maid  of  the  Inn  and  The  Battle  of  Waterloo.  In 
this  roll-call  of  stirring  names  you  read  the  evidences 
of  a  happy  childhood ;  and  though  not  half  of  them  are 
still  to  be  procured  of  any  living  stationer,  in  the  mind 
of  their  once  happy  owner  all  survive,  kaleidoscopes  of 
changing  pictures,  echoes  of  the  past. 

306 


"A   PENNY  PLAIN   AND  TWOPENCE  COLOURED" 

There  stands,  I  fancy,  to  this  day  (but  now  how 
fallen ! )  a  certain  stationer's  shop  at  a  corner  of  the  wide 
thoroughfare  that  joins  the  city  of  my  childhood  with 
the  sea.  When,  upon  any  Saturday,  we  made  a  party 
to  behold  the  ships,  we  passed  that  corner;  and  since 
in  those  days  I  loved  a  ship  as  a  man  loves  Burgundy 
or  daybreak,  this  of  itself  had  been  enough  to  hallow 
it.  But  there  was  more  than  that.  In  the  Leith  Walk 
window,  all  the  year  round,  there  stood  displayed  a 
theatre  in  working  order,  with  a  "  forest  set,"  a  "  com- 
bat," and  a  few  "  robbers  carousing"  in  the  slides;  and 
below  and  about,  dearer  tenfold  to  me!  the  plays  them- 
selves, those  budgets  of  romance,  lay  tumbled  one 
upon  another.  Long  and  often  have  I  lingered  there 
with  empty  pockets.  One  figure,  we  shall  say,  was 
visible  in  the  first  plate  of  characters,  bearded,  pistol  in 
hand,  or  drawing  to  his  ear  the  clothyard  arrow;  I 
would  spell  the  name:  was  it  Macaire,  or  Long  Tom 
Coffin,  or  GrindorT,  2d  dress  ?  O,  how  I  would  long 
to  see  the  rest!  how  —  if  the  name  by  chance  were 
hidden  —  I  would  wonder  in  what  play  he  figured,  and 
what  immortal  legend  justified  his  attitude  and  strange 
apparel !  And  then  to  go  within,  to  announce  yourself 
as  an  intending  purchaser,  and,  closely  watched,  be 
suffered  to  undo  those  bundles  and  breathlessly  devour 
those  pages  of  gesticulating  villains,  epileptic  combats, 
bosky  forests,  palaces  and  war-ships,  frowning  fort- 
resses and  prison  vaults  —  it  was  a  giddy  joy.  That 
shop,  which  was  dark  and  smelt  of  Bibles,  was  a  load- 
stone rock  for  all  that  bore  the  name  of  boy.  They 
could  not  pass  it  by,  nor,  having  entered,  leave  it.  It 
was  a  place  besieged;  the  shopmen,  like  the  Jews 

307 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

rebuilding  Salem,  had  a  double  task.  They  kept  us  at 
the  stick's  end,  frowned  us  down,  snatched  each  play 
out  of  our  hand  ere  we  were  trusted  with  another; 
and,  increditable  as  it  may  sound,  used  to  demand  of 
us  upon  our  entrance,  like  banditti,  if  we  came  with 
money  or  with  empty  hand.  Old  Mr.  Smith  himself, 
worn  out  with  my  eternal  vacillation,  once  swept  the 
treasures  from  before  me,  with  the  cry:  "I  do  not 
believe,  child,  that  you  are  an  intending  purchaser  at 
all!"  These  were  the  dragons  of  the  garden;  but  for 
such  joys  of  paradise  we  could  have  faced  the  Terror 
of  Jamaica  himself.  Every  sheet  we  fingered  was  an- 
other lightning  glance  into  obscure,  delicious  story;  it 
was  like  wallowing  in  the  raw  stuff  of  story-books.  I 
know  nothing  to  compare  with  it  save  now  and  then  in 
dreams,  when  I  am  privileged  to  read  in  certain  unwrit 
stories  of  adventure,  from  which  I  awake  to  find  the 
world  all  vanity.  The  crux  of  Buridan's  donkey  was 
as  nothing  to  the  uncertainty  of  the  boy  as  he  handled 
and  lingered  and  doated  on  these  bundles  of  delight; 
there  was  a  physical  pleasure  in  the  sight  and  touch  of 
them  which  he  would  jealously  prolong;  and  when  at 
length  the  deed  was  done,  the  play  selected,  and  the 
impatient  shopman  had  brushed  the  rest  into  the  gray 
portfolio,  and  the  boy  was  forth  again,  a  little  late  for 
dinner,  the  lamps  springing  into  light  in  the  blue  win- 
ter's even,  and  The  Miller,  or  The  Raver,  or  some 
kindred  drama  clutched  against  his  side — on  what  gay 
feet  he  ran,  and  how  he  laughed  aloud  in  exultation  I 
I  can  hear  that  laughter  still.  Out  of  all  the  years  of 
my  life,  I  can  recall  but  one  home-coming  to  compare 
with  these,  and  that  was  on  the  night  when  I  brought 

308 


"A   PENNY   PLAIN   AND   TWOPENCE  COLOURED" 

back  with  me  the  Arabian  Entertainments  in  the  fat, 
old,  double-columned  volume  with  the  prints.  I  was 
just  well  into  the  story  of  the  Hunchback,  I  remember, 
when  my  clergyman-grandfather  ( a  man  we  counted 
pretty  stiff)  came  in  behind  me.  I  grew  blind  with  ter- 
ror. But  instead  of  ordering  the  book  away,  he  said  he 
envied  me.     Ah,  well  he  might! 

The  purchase  and  the  first  half-hour  at  home,  that  was 
the  summit.  Thenceforth  the  interest  declined  by  little 
and  little.  The  fable,  as  set  forth  in  the  play-book, 
proved  to  be  not  worthy  of  the  scenes  and  characters : 
what  fable  would  not?  Such  passages  as:  " Scene  6. 
The  Hermitage.  Night  set  scene.  Place  back  of  scene 
i,  No.  2,  at  back  of  stage  and  hermitage,  Fig.  2,  out  of 
set  piece,  R.  H.  in  a  slanting  direction  " — such  passages, 
I  say,  though  very  practical,  are  hardly  to  be  called  good 
reading.  Indeed,  as  literature,  these  dramas  did  not 
much  appeal  to  me.  I  forget  the  very  outline  of  the 
plots.  Of  The  Blind  Boy,  beyond  the  fact  that  he  was 
a  most  injured  prince  and  once,  I  think,  abducted,  I 
know  nothing.  And  The  Old  Oak  Chest,  what  was  it 
all  about?  that  proscript  (1st  dress),  that  prodigious 
number  of  banditti,  that  old  woman  with  the  broom, 
and  the  magnificent  kitchen  in  the  third  act  (was  it  in 
the  third?) — they  are  all  fallen  in  a  deliquium,  swim 
faintly  in  my  brain,  and  mix  and  vanish. 

I  cannot  deny  that  joy  attended  the  illumination ;  nor 
can  I  quite  forgive  that  child  who,  wilfully  foregoing 
pleasure,  stoops  to  "twopence coloured."  With  crim- 
son lake  (hark  to  the  sound  of  it  — crimson  lake!  —  the 
horns  of  elf-land  are  not  richer  on  the  ear)  —  with  crim- 
son lake  and  Prussian  blue  a  certain  purple  is  to  be  com- 

309 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

pounded  which,  for  cloaks  especially,  Titian  could  not 
equal.  The  latter  colour  with  gamboge,  a  hated  name 
although  an  exquisite  pigment,  supplied  a  green  of  such  a 
savoury  greenness  that  to-day  my  heart  regrets  it.  Nor 
can  I  recall  without  a  tender  weakness  the  very  aspect 
of  the  water  where  I  dipped  my  brush.  Yes,  there  was 
pleasure  in  the  painting.  But  when  all  was  painted,  it 
is  needless  to  deny  it,  all  was  spoiled.  You  might,  in- 
deed, set  up  a  scene  or  two  to  look  at ;  but  to  cut  the 
figures  out  was  simply  sacrilege;  nor  could  any  child 
twice  court  the  tedium,  the  worry,  and  the  long-drawn 
disenchantment  of  an  actual  performance.  Two  days 
after  the  purchase  the  honey  had  been  sucked.  Parents 
used  to  complain ;  they  thought  I  wearied  of  my  play. 
It  was  not  so:  no  more  than  a  person  can  be  said 
to  have  wearied  of  his  dinner  when  he  leaves  the 
bones  and  dishes ;  I  had  got  the  marrow  of  it  and  said 
grace. 

Then  was  the  time  to  turn  to  the  back  of  the  play- 
book  and  to  study  that  enticing  double  file  of  names, 
where  poetry,  for  the  true  child  of  Skelt,  reigned  happy 
and  glorious  like  her  Majesty  the  Queen.  Much  as  I 
have  travelled  in  these  realms  of  gold,  I  have  yet  seen, 
upon  that  map  or  abstract,  names  of  El  Dorados  that 
still  haunt  the  ear  of  memory,  and  are  still  but  names. 
The  Floating  Beacon  —  why  was  that  denied  me  ?  or 
The  Wreck  Ashore}  Sixteen-String Jack,  whom  I  did 
not  even  guess  to  be  a  highwayman,  troubled  me  awake 
and  haunted  my  slumbers ;  and  there  is  one  sequence 
of  three  from  that  enchanted  calendar  that  I  still  at  times 
recall,  like  a  loved  verse  of  poetry :  Lodoi&ka,  Silver  Pal- 
ace, Echo  of  Westminster  Bridge.     Names,  bare  namesy 

310 


"A   PENNY   PLAIN   AND  TWOPENCE  COLOURED" 

are  surely  more  to  children  than  we  poor,  grown-up, 
obliterated  fools  remember. 

The  name  of  Skelt  itself  has  always  seemed  a  part  and 
parcel  of  the  charm  of  his  productions.  It  may  be  dif- 
ferent with  the  rose,  but  the  attraction  of  this  paper 
drama  sensibly  declined  when  Webb  had  crept  into  the 
rubric :  a  poor  cuckoo,  flaunting  in  Skelt's  nest.  And 
now  we  have  reached  Pollock,  sounding  deeper  gulfs. 
Indeed,  this  name  of  Skelt  appears  so  stagey  and  piratic, 
that  I  will  adopt  it  boldly  to  design  these  qualities. 
Skeltery,  then,  is  a  quality  of  much  art.  It  is  even  to 
be  found,  with  reverence  be  it  said,  among  the  works 
of  nature.  The  stagey  is  its  generic  name;  but  it  is  an 
old,  insular,  home-bred  staginess ;  not  French,  domes- 
tically British ;  not  of  to-day,  but  smacking  of  O.  Smith, 
Fitzball,  and  the  great  age  of  melodrama:  a  peculiar 
fragrance  haunting  it;  uttering  its  unimportant  message 
in  a  tone  of  voice  that  has  the  charm  of  fresh  antiquity. 
I  will  not  insist  upon  the  art  of  Skelt's  purveyors.  These 
wonderful  characters  that  once  so  thrilled  our  soul  with 
their  bold  attitude,  array  of  deadly  engines  and  incom- 
parable costume,  to-day  look  somewhat  pallidly;  the 
extreme  hard  favour  of  the  heroine  strikes  me,  I  had  al- 
most said  with  pain ;  the  villain's  scowl  no  longer  thrills 
me  like  a  trumpet;  and  the  scenes  themselves,  those 
once  unparalleled  landscapes,  seem  the  efforts  of  a  pren- 
tice hand.  So  much  of  fault  we  find ;  but  on  the  other 
side  the  impartial  critic  rejoices  to  remark  the  presence 
of  a  great  unity  of  gusto;  of  those  direct  clap-trap 
appeals,  which  a  man  is  dead  and  buriable  when  he 
fails  to  answer;  of  the  footlight  glamour,  the  ready- 
made,  bare-faced,  transpontine  picturesque,  a  thing  noc 

311 


MEMORIES   AND    PORTRAITS 

one  with  cold  reality,   but  how  much  dearer  to  the 
mind! 

The  scenery  of  Skeltdom  —  or,  shall  we  say,  the  king- 
dom of  Transpontus  ?  —  had  a  prevailing  character. 
Whether  it  set  forth  Poland  as  in  The  Blind  Boy,  or 
Bohemia  with  The  Miller  and  his  Men,  or  Italy  with 
The  Old  Oak  Chest,  still  it  was  Transpontus.  A  bota- 
nist could  tell  it  by  the  plants.  The  hollyhock  was 
all  pervasive,  running  wild  in  deserts;  the  dock  was 
common,  and  the  bending  reed;  and  overshadowing 
these  were  poplar,  palm,  potato  tree,  and  Quercus  Skel- 
tica  —  brave  growths.  The  caves  were  all  embo welled 
in  the  Surreyside  formation ;  the  soil  was  all  betrodden 
by  the  light  pump  of  T.  P.  Cooke.  Skelt,  to  be  sure, 
had  yet  another,  an  oriental  string :  he  held  the  gorgeous 
east  in  fee ;  and  in  the  new  quarter  of  Hyeres,  say,  in 
the  garden  of  the  Hotel  des  Isles  d'Or,  you  may  behold 
these  blessed  visions  realised.  But  on  these  I  will  not 
dwell;  they  were  an  outwork;  it  was  in  the  occidental 
scenery  that  Skelt  was  all  himself.  It  had  a  strong  fla- 
vour of  England ;  it  was  a  sort  of  indigestion  of  England 
and  drop-scenes,  and  I  am  bound  to  say  was  charming. 
How  the  roads  wander,  how  the  castle  sits  upon  the 
hill,  how  the  sun  eradiates  from  behind  the  cloud,  and 
how  the  congregated  clouds  themselves  uproll,  as  stiff 
as  bolsters!  Here  is  the  cottage  interior,  the  usual  first 
flat,  with  the  cloak  upon  the  nail,  the  rosaries  of  onions, 
the  gun  and  powder-horn  and  corner-cupboard;  here 
is  the  inn  (this  drama  must  be  nautical,  I  foresee  Captain 
Luff  and  Bold  Bob  Bowsprit)  with  the  red  curtain,  pipes, 
spittoons,  and  eight-day  clock ;  and  there  again  is  that 
impressive  dungeon  with  the  chains,  which  was  so  dull 

312 


"A   PENNY   PLAIN   AND   TWOPENCE  COLOURED" 

to  colour.  England,  the  hedgerow  elms,  the  thin  brick 
houses,  windmills,  glimpses  of  the  navigable  Thames 
—  England,  when  at  last  I  came  to  visit  it,  was  only 
Skelt  made  evident:  to  cross  the  border  was,  for  the 
Scotsman,  to  come  home  to  Skelt;  there  was  the  inn- 
sign  and  there  the  horse-trough,  all  foreshadowed  in 
the  faithful  Skelt.  If,  at  the  ripe  age  of  fourteen  years, 
I  bought  a  certain  cudgel,  got  a  friend  to  load  it,  and 
thenceforward  walked  the  tame  ways  of  the  earth  my 
own  ideal,  radiating  pure  romance  —  still  I  was  but  a 
puppet  in  the  hand  of  Skelt;  the  original  of  that  regret- 
ted bludgeon,  and  surely  the  antitype  of  all  the  bludgeon 
kind,  greatly  improved  from  Cruikshank,  had  adorned 
the  hand  of  Jonathan  Wild,  pi.  i.  "This  is  mastering 
me,"  as  Whitman  cries,  upon  some  lesser  provocation. 
What  am  I  ?  what  are  life,  art,  letters,  the  world,  but 
what  my  Skelt  has  made  them  ?  He  stamped  himself 
upon  my  immaturity.  The  world  was  plain  before  I 
knew  him,  a  poor  penny  world;  but  soon  it  was  all 
coloured  with  romance.  If  I  go  to  the  theatre  to  see  a 
good  old  melodrama,  'tis  but  Skelt  a  little  faded.  If  I 
visit  a  bold  scene  in  nature,  Skelt  would  have  been 
bolder ;  there  had  been  certainly  a  castle  on  that  moun- 
tain, and  the  hollow  tree  —  that  set  piece  —  I  seem  to 
miss  it  in  the  foreground.  Indeed,  out  of  this  cut-and- 
dry,  dull,  swaggering,  obtrusive  and  infantile  art,  I  seem 
to  have  learned  the  very  spirit  of  my  life's  enjoyment; 
met  there  the  shadows  of  the  characters  I  was  to  read 
about  and  love  in  a  late  future ;  got  the  romance  of  Der 
Freischiitz  long  ere  I  was  to  hear  of  Weber  or  the 
mighty  Formes ;  acquired  a  gallery  of  scenes  and  char- 
acters with  which,  in  the  silent  theatre  of  the  brain,  I 

3«3 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

might  enact  all  novels  and  romances;  and  took  from 
these  rude  cuts  an  enduring  and  transforming  pleasure. 
Reader — and  yourself? 

A  word  of  moral:  it  appears  that  B.  Pollock,  late  J. 
Redington,  No.  73  Hoxton  Street,  not  only  publishes 
twenty-three  of  these  old  stage  favourites,  but  owns  the 
necessary  plates  and  displays  a  modest  readiness  to  issue 
other  thirty-three.  If  you  love  art,  folly,  or  the  bright 
eyes  of  children,  speed  to  Pollock's,  or  to  Clarke's  of 
Garrick  Street.  In  Pollock's  list  of  publicanda  I  per- 
ceive a  pair  of  my  ancient  aspirations :  Wreck  Ashore 
and  Sixteen-String  Jack ;  and  I  cherish  the  belief  that 
when  these  shall  see  once  more  the  light  of  day,  B.  Pol- 
lock will  remember  this  apologist.  But,  indeed,  I  have 
a  dream  at  times  that  is  not  all  a  dream.  I  seem  to  my- 
self to  wander  in  a  ghostly  street  —  E.  W.,  I  think, 
the  postal  district  —  close  below  the  fool's-cap  of  St. 
Paul's,  and  yet  within  easy  hearing  of  the  echo  of  the 
Abbey  bridge.  There  in  a  dim  shop,  low  in  the  roof 
and  smelling  strong  of  glue  and  footlights,  I  find  myself 
in  quaking  treaty  with  great  Skelt  himself,  the  aborigi- 
nal, all  dusty  from  the  tomb.  I  buy,  with  what  a  chok- 
ing heart  —  I  buy  them  all,  all  but  the  pantomimes;  J 
pay  my  mental  money,  and  go  forth ;  and  lo  !  the  pack- 
ets are  dust. 


W 


XIV.   A  GOSSIP  ON  A  NOVEL  OF  DUMAS'S 

THE  books  that  we  re-read  the  oftenest  are  not  always 
those  that  we  admire  the  most;  we  choose  and 
we  revisit  them  for  many  and  various  reasons,  as  we 
choose  and  revisit  human  friends.  One  or  two  of 
Scott's  novels,  Shakespeare,  Moliere,  Montaigne,  The 
Egoist,  and  the  Vicomte  de  Bragelonne,  form  the  inner 
circle  of  my  intimates.  Behind  these  comes  a  good 
troop  of  dear  acquaintances;  The  Pilgrim's  Progress  in 
the  front  rank,  The  Bible  in  Spain  not  far  behind.  There 
are  besides  a  certain  number  that  look  at  me  with  re- 
proach as  I  pass  them  by  on  my  shelves :  books  that  I 
once  thumbed  and  studied:  houses  which  were  once 
like  home  to  me,  but  where  I  now  rarely  visit.  I  am 
on  these  sad  terms  (and  blush  to  confess  it)  with  Words- 
worth, Horace,  Burns  and  Hazlitt.  Last  of  all,  there  is 
the  class  of  book  that  has  its  hour  of  brilliancy  —  glows, 
sings,  charms,  and  then  fades  again  into  insignificance 
until  the  fit  return.  Chief  of  those  who  thus  smile  and 
frown  on  me  by  turns,  I  must  name  Virgil  and  Herrick, 
who,  were  they  but 

11  Their  sometime  selves  the  same  throughout  the  year," 

must  have  stood  in  the  first  company  with  the  six 
names  of  my  continual  literary  intimates.     To  these  six, 

315 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

incongruous  as  they  seem,  I  have  long  been  faithful, 
and  hope  to  be  faithful  to  the  day  of  death.  I  have  never 
read  the  whole  of  Montaigne,  but  I  do  not  like  to  be 
long  without  reading  some  of  him,  and  my  delight  in 
what  I  do  read  never  lessens.  Of  Shakespeare  I  have 
read  all  but  Richard  III. ,  Henry  VI. ,  Titus  Andronicus, 
and  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well;  and  these,  having  al- 
ready made  all  suitable  endeavour,  I  now  know  that  I 
shall  never  read  —  to  make  up  for  which  unfaithfulness 
I  could  read  much  of  the  rest  for  ever.  Of  Moliere  — 
surely  the  next  greatest  name  of  Christendom  —  I  could 
tell  a  very  similar  story ;  but  in  a  little  corner  of  a  little 
essay  these  princes  are  too  much  out  of  place,  and  I  pre- 
fer to  pay  my  fealty  and  pass  on.  How  often  I  have 
read  Guy  Mannering,  Rob  Roy,  or  Redgauntlet,  I  have 
no  means  of  guessing,  having  begun  young.  But  it  is 
either  four  or  five  times  that  I  have  read  The  Egoist,  and 
either  five  or  six  that  I  have  read  the  Vicomte  de  Br  age- 
lonne. 

Some,  who  would  accept  the  others,  may  wonder 
that  I  should  have  spent  so  much  of  this  brief  life  of 
ours  over  a  work  so  little  famous  as  the  last.  And,  in- 
deed, I  am  surprised  myself;  not  at  my  own  devotion, 
but  the  coldness  of  the  world.  My  acquaintance  with 
the  Vicomte  began,  somewhat  indirectly,  in  the  year  of 
grace  1863,  when  I  had  the  advantage  of  studying  cer- 
tain illustrated  dessert  plates  in  a  hotel  at  Nice.  The 
name  of  d'Artagnan  in  the  legends  I  already  saluted  like 
an  old  friend,  for  I  had  met  it  the  year  before  in  a  work 
of  Miss  Yonge's.  My  first  perusal  was  in  one  of  those 
pirated  editions  that  swarmed  at  that  time  out  of  Brus- 
sels, and  ran  to  such  a  troop  of  neat  and  dwarfish  vol- 

316 


A   GOSSIP  ON   A   NOVEL  OF   DUMAS'S 

umes.  I  understood  but  little  of  the  merits  of  the  book; 
my  strongest  memory  is  of  the  execution  of  d'Eymeric 
and  Lyodot — a  strange  testimony  to  the  dulness  of  a 
boy,  who  could  enjoy  the  rough-and-tumble  in  the 
Place  de  Greve,  and  forget  d'Artagnan's  visits  to  the  two 
financiers.  My  next  reading  was  in  winter-time,  when 
I  lived  alone  upon  the  Pentlands.  I  would  return  in  the 
early  night  from  one  of  my  patrols  with  the  shepherd ; 
a  friendly  face  would  meet  me  in  the  door,  a  friendly  re- 
triever scurry  upstairs  to  fetch  my  slippers;  and  I  would 
sit  down  with  the  Vicomte  for  a  long,  silent,  solitary 
lamp-light  evening  by  the  fire.  And  yet  I  know  not 
why  I  call  it  silent,  when  it  was  enlivened  with  such  a 
clatter  of  horse-shoes,  and  such  a  rattle  of  musketry, 
and  such  a  stir  of  talk;  or  why  I  call  those  evenings 
solitary  in  which  I  gained  so  many  friends.  I  would 
rise  from  my  book  and  pull  the  blind  aside,  and  see  the 
snow  and  the  glittering  hollies  chequer  a  Scotch  gar- 
den, and  the  winter  moonlight  brighten  the  white  hills. 
Thence  I  would  turn  again  to  that  crowded  and  sunny 
field  of  life  in  which  it  was  so  easy  to  forget  myself, 
my  cares,  and  my  surroundings :  a  place  busy  as  a  city, 
bright  as  a  theatre,  thronged  with  memorable  faces,  and 
sounding  with  delightful  speech.  I  carried  the  thread 
of  that  epic  into  my  slumbers,  I  woke  with  it  unbroken, 
1  rejoiced  to  plunge  into  the  book  again  at  breakfast,  it 
was  with  a  pang  that  I  must  lay  it  down  and  turn  to 
my  own  labours;  for  no  part  of  the  world  has  ever 
seemed  to  me  so  charming  as  these  pages,  and  not  even 
my  friends  are  quite  so  real,  perhaps  quite  so  dear,  as 
d'Artagnan. 
Since  then  I  have  been  going  to  and  fro  at  very  brief 

3*7 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

intervals  in  my  favourite  book;  and  I  have  now  just 
risen  from  my  last  (let  me  call  it  my  fifth)  perusal,  hav- 
ing liked  it  better  and  admired  it  more  seriously  than 
ever.  Perhaps  I  have  a  sense  of  ownership,  being  so 
well  known  in  these  six  volumes.  Perhaps  I  think  that 
d'Artagnan  delights  to  have  me  read  of  him,  and  Louis 
Quatorze  is  gratified,  and  Fouquet  throws  me  a  look, 
and  Aramis,  although  he  knows  I  do  not  love  him,  yet 
plays  to  me  with  his  best  graces,  as  to  an  old  patron  of 
the  show.  Perhaps,  if  I  am  not  careful,  something  may 
befall  me  like  what  befell  George  IV.  about  the  battle  of 
Waterloo,  and  I  may  come  to  fancy  the  Vicomte  one  of 
the  first,  and  Heaven  knows  the  best,  of  my  own  works. 
At  least,  I  avow  myself  a  partisan;  and  when  I  compare 
the  popularity  of  the  Vicomte  with  that  of  Monte  Cristo, 
or  its  own  elder  brother,  the  Trots  Mousquetaires,  I 
confess  I  am  both  pained  and  puzzled. 

To  those  who  have  already  made  acquaintance  with 
the  titular  hero  in  the  pages  of  Vingt  Ans  Apres,  per- 
haps the  name  may  act  as  a  deterrent.  A  man  might 
well  stand  back  if  he  supposed  he  were  to  follow,  for 
six  volumes,  so  well-conducted,  so  fine-spoken,  and 
withal  so  dreary  a  cavalier  as  Bragelonne.  But  the  fear 
is  idle.  I  may  be  said  to  have  passed  the  best  years  of 
my  life  in  these  six  volumes,  and  my  acquaintance  with 
Raoul  has  never  gone  beyond  a  bow ;  and  when  he,  who 
has  so  long  pretended  to  be  alive,  is  at  last  suffered  to 
pretend  to  be  dead,  I  am  sometimes  reminded  of  a  say- 
ing in  an  earlier  volume :  "Enfin,  dit  Miss  Stewart, ' ' — 
and  it  was  of  Bragelonne  she  spoke  —  "  enfin  il  a  fait 
quelquechose :  c'est,  ma  foil  bien  heureux."  I  am  re- 
minded of  it,  as  I  say;  and  the  next  moment,  when 

318 


A   GOSSIP  ON   A  NOVEL  OF  DUMAS'S 

Athos  dies  of  his  death,  and  my  dear  d'Artagnan  bursts 
into  his  storm  of  sobbing,  I  can  but  deplore  my  flip- 
pancy. 

Or  perhaps  it  is  La  Valliere  that  the  reader  of  Vingt 
Ans  Apris  is  inclined  to  flee.  Well,  he  is  right  there 
too,  though  not  so  right.  Louise  is  no  success.  Her 
creator  has  spared  no  pains ;  she  is  well-meant,  not  ill- 
designed,  sometimes  has  a  word  that  rings  out  true; 
sometimes,  if  only  for  a  breath,  she  may  even  engage 
our  sympathies.  But  I  have  never  envied  the  King  his 
triumph.  And  so  far  from  pitying  Bragelonne  for  his 
defeat,  I  could  wish  him  no  worse  (not  for  lack  of  malice, 
but  imagination)  than  to  be  wedded  to  that  lady.  Ma- 
dame enchants  me;  I  can  forgive  that  royal  minx  her 
most  serious  offences;  I  can  thrill  and  soften  with  the 
King  on  that  memorable  occasion  when  he  goes  to  up- 
braid and  remains  to  flirt;  and  when  it  comes  to  the 
"Allons,  aime^-moi  done,"  it  is  my  heart  that  melts  in 
the  bosom  of  de  Guiche.  Not  so  with  Louise.  Readers 
cannot  fail  to  have  remarked  that  what  an  author  tells 
us  of  the  beauty  or  the  charm  of  his  creatures  goes  for 
nought;  that  we  know  instantly  better;  that  the  heroine 
cannot  open  her  mouth  but  what,  all  in  a  moment,  the 
fine  phrases  of  preparation  fall  from  round  her  like  the 
robes  from  Cinderella,  and  she  stands  before  us,  self- 
betrayed,  as  a  poor,  ugly,  sickly  wench,  or  perhaps  a 
strapping  market-woman.  Authors,  at  least,  know  it 
well;  a  heroine  will  too  often  start  the  trick  of  "getting 
ugly ; "  and  no  disease  is  more  difficult  to  cure.  I  said 
authors ;  but  indeed  I  had  a  side  eye  to  one  author  in 
particular,  with  whose  works  I  am  very  well  acquainted, 
though  I  cannot  read  them,  and  who  has  spent  many 

319 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

vigils  in  this  cause,  sitting  beside  his  ailing  puppets  and 
(like  a  magician)  wearying  his  art  to  restore  them  to 
youth  and  beauty.  There  are  others  who  ride  too  high 
for  these  misfortunes.  Who  doubts  the  loveliness  of 
Rosalind  ?  Arden  itself  was  not  more  lovely.  Who 
ever  questioned  the  perennial  charm  of  Rose  Jocelyn, 
Lucy  Desborough,  or  Clara  Middleton  ?  fair  women 
with  fair  names,  the  daughters  of  George  Meredith. 
Elizabeth  Bennet  has  but  to  speak,  and  I  am  at  her 
knees.  Ah !  these  are  the  creators  of  desirable  women. 
They  would  never  have  fallen  in  the  mud  with  Dumas 
and  poor  La  Valliere.  It  is  my  only  consolation  that  not 
one  of  all  of  them,  except  the  first,  could  have  plucked 
at  the  moustache  of  d' Artagnan. 

Or  perhaps,  again,  a  proportion  of  readers  stumble  at 
the  threshold.  In  so  vast  a  mansion  there  were  sure  to 
be  back  stairs  and  kitchen  offices  where  no  one  would 
delight  to  linger;  but  it  was  at  least  unhappy  that  the 
vestibule  should  be  so  badly  lighted ;  and  until,  in  the 
seventeenth  chapter,  d'Artagnan  sets  off  to  seek  his 
friends,  I  must  confess,  the  book  goes  heavily  enough. 
But,  from  thenceforward,  what  a  feast  is  spread !  Monk 
kidnapped ;  d'Artagnan  enriched ;  Mazarin's  death ;  the 
ever  delectable  adventure  of  Belle  Isle,  wherein  Aramis 
outwits  d'Artagnan,  with  its  epilogue  (vol.  v.  chap, 
xxviii.),  where  d'Artagnan  regains  the  moral  superiority; 
the  love  adventures  at  Fontainebleau,  with  St.  Aignan's 
story  of  the  dryad  and  the  business  of  de  Guiche,  de 
Wardes,  and  Manicamp;  Aramis  made  general  of  the 
Jesuits;  Aramis  at  the  bastille;  the  night  talk  in  the 
forest  of  Senart;  Belle  Isle  again,  with  the  death  of 
Porthos ;  and  last,  but  not  least,  the  taming  of  d' Arta- 

320 


A   GOSSIP   ON    A   NOVEL   OF   DUMAS'S 

gnan  the  untamable,  under  the  lash  of  the  young  King. 
What  other  novel  has  such  epic  variety  and  nobility  of 
incident?  often,  if  you  will,  impossible;  often  of  the 
order  of  an  Arabian  story ;  and  yet  all  based  in  human 
nature.  For  if  you  come  to  that,  what  novel  has  more 
human  nature  ?  not  studied  with  the  microscope,  but 
seen  largely,  in  plain  daylight,  with  the  natural  eye  ? 
What  novel  has  more  good  sense,  and  gaiety,  and  wit, 
and  unflagging,  admirable  literary  skill  ?  Good  souls, 
I  suppose,  must  sometimes  read  it  in  the  blackguard 
travesty  of  a  translation.  But  there  is  no  style  so  un- 
translatable; light  as  a  whipped  trifle,  strong  as  silk; 
wordy  like  a  village  tale;  pat  like  a  general's  despatch; 
with  every  fault,  yet  never  tedious ;  with  no  merit,  yet 
inimitably  right.  And,  once  more,  to  make  an  end  of 
commendations,  what  novel  is  inspired  with  a  more 
unstrained  or  a  more  wholesome  morality  ? 

Yes ;  in  spite  of  Miss  Yonge,  who  introduced  me  to 
the  name  of  d'Artagnan  only  to  dissuade  me  from  a 
nearer  knowledge  of  the  man,  I  have  to  add  morality. 
There  is  no  quite  good  book  without  a  good  morality ; 
but  the  world  is  wide,  and  so  are  morals.  Out  of  two 
people  who  have  dipped  into  Sir  Richard  Burton's 
Thousand  and  One  Nights,  one  shall  have  been  offended 
by  the  animal  details;  another  to  whom  these  were 
harmless,  perhaps  even  pleasing,  shall  yet  have  been 
shocked  in  his  turn  by  the  rascality  and  cruelty  of  all  the 
characters.  Of  two  readers,  again,  one  shall  have  been 
pained  by  the  morality  of  a  religious  memoir,  one  by 
that  of  the  Vicomte  de  Bragelonne.  And  the  point  is 
that  neither  need  be  wrong.  We  shall  always  shock 
each  other  both  in  life  and  art;  we  cannot  get  the  sun 

321 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

into  our  pictures,  nor  the  abstract  right  (if  there  be  such 
a  thing)  into  our  books;  enough  if,  in  the  one,  there 
glimmer  some  hint  of  the  great  light  that  blinds  us  from 
heaven ;  enough,  if,  in  the  other,  there  shine,  even  upon 
foul  details,  a  spirit  of  magnanimity.  I  would  scarce 
send  to  the  Vicomte  a  reader  who  was  in  quest  of  what 
we  may  call  puritan  morality.  The  ventripotent  mu- 
latto, the  great  eater,  worker,  earner  and  waster,  the 
man  of  much  and  witty  laughter,  the  man  of  the  great 
heart  and  alas !  of  the  doubtful  honesty,  is  a  figure  not 
yet  clearly  set  before  the  world ;  he  still  awaits  a  sober 
and  yet  genial  portrait ;  but  with  whatever  art  that  may 
be  touched,  and  whatever  indulgence,  it  will  not  be  the 
portrait  of  a  precisian.  Dumas  was  certainly  not  thinking 
of  himself,  but  of  Planchet,  when  he  put  into  the  mouth 
of  d'Artagnan's  old  servant  this  excellent  profession: 
"Monsieur,  j'etais  une  de  ces  bonnes  pates  d'hommes 
que  Dieu  a  fait  pour  s'animer  pendant  un  certain 
temps  et  pour  trouver  bonnes  toutes  choses  qui  accom- 
pagnent  leur  sejour  sur  la  terre. ' '  He  was  thinking,  as 
I  say,  of  Planchet,  to  whom  the  words  are  aptly  fitted ; 
but  they  were  fitted  also  to  Planchet's  creator;  and  per- 
haps this  struck  him  as  he  wrote,  for  observe  what  fol- 
lows :  "D' Artagnan  s'assit  alors  pres  de  la  fenetre,  et, 
cette  philosophie  de  Planchet  lui  ay  ant  paru  solide,  il  y 
reva. "  In  a  man  who  finds  all  things  good,  you  will 
scarce  expect  much  zeal  for  negative  virtues :  the  active 
alone  will  have  a  charm  for  him ;  abstinence,  however 
wise,  however  kind,  will  always  seem  to  such  a  judge 
entirely  mean  and  partly  impious.  So  with  Dumas. 
Chastity  is  not  near  his  heart;  nor  yet,  to  his  own  sore 
cost,  that  virtue  of  frugality  which  is  the  armour  of  the 

322 


A   GOSSIP  ON   A  NOVEL  OF   DUMAS'S 

artist.  Now,  in  the  Vicomte,  he  had  much  to  do  with 
the  contest  of  Fouquet  and  Colbert.  Historic  justice 
should  be  all  upon  the  side  of  Colbert,  of  official  hon- 
esty, and  fiscal  competence.  And  Dumas  knew  it  well : 
three  times  at  least  he  shows  his  knowledge ;  once  it  is 
but  flashed  upon  us  and  received  with  the  laughter  of 
Fouquet  himself,  in  the  jesting  controversy  in  the  gar- 
dens of  Saint  Mande ;  once  it  is  touched  on  by  Aramis 
in  the  forest  of  Senart ;  in  the  end,  it  is  set  before  us 
clearly  in  one  dignified  speech  of  the  triumphant  Colbert. 
But  in  Fouquet,  the  waster,  the  lover  of  good  cheer  and 
wit  and  art,  the  swift  transactor  of  much  business, 
"  Vhomme  de  bruit,  Vhomme  de  plaisir,  I'homme  qui 
n'est  que parceque  les  autres  sont,"  Dumas  saw  some- 
thing of  himself  and  drew  the  figure  the  more  tenderly. 
It  is  to  me  even  touching  to  see  how  he  insists  on  Fou- 
quet's  honour;  not  seeing,  you  might  think,  that  un- 
flawed  honour  is  impossible  to  spendthrifts ;  but  rather, 
perhaps,  in  the  light  of  his  own  life,  seeing  it  too  well, 
and  clinging  the  more  to  what  was  left.  Honour  can 
survive  a  wound ;  it  can  live  and  thrive  without  a  mem- 
ber. The  man  rebounds  from  his  disgrace ;  he  begins 
fresh  foundations  on  the  ruins  of  the  old ;  and  when  his 
sword  is  broken,  he  will  do  valiantly  with  his  dagger. 
So  it  is  with  Fouquet  in  the  book ;  so  it  was  with  Dumas 
on  the  battlefield  of  life. 

To  cling  to  what  is  left  of  any  damaged  quality  is 
virtue  in  the  man;  but  perhaps  to  sing  its  praises  is 
scarcely  to  be  called  morality  in  the  writer.  And  it  is 
elsewhere,  it  is  in  the  character  of  d'Artagnan,  that  we 
must  look  for  that  spirit  of  morality,  which  is  one  of  the 
chief  merits  of  the  book,  makes  one  of  the  main  joys  of 

323 


MEMORIES   AND    PORTRAITS 

its  perusal,  and  sets  it  high  above  more  popular  rivals. 
Athos,  with  the  coming  of  years,  has  declined  too  much 
into  the  preacher,  and  the  preacher  of  a  sapless  creed; 
but  d'Artagnan  has  mellowed  into  a  man  so  witty, 
rough,  kind  and  upright,  that  he  takes  the  heart  by 
storm.  There  is  nothing  of  the  copy-book  about  his 
virtues,  nothing  of  the  drawing-room  in  his  fine,  nat- 
ural civility ;  he  will  sail  near  the  wind ;  he  is  no  district 
visitor  —  no  Wesley  or  Robespierre;  his  conscience  is 
void  of  all  refinement  whether  for  good  or  evil ;  but  the 
whole  man  rings  true  like  a  good  sovereign.  Readers 
who  have  approached  the  Vicomte,  not  across  country, 
but  by  the  legitimate,  five-volumed  avenue  of  the  Mous- 
quetaires  and  Vingt  Ans  Apres,  will  not  have  forgotten 
d'Artagnan's  ungentlemanly  and  perfectly  improbable 
trick  upon  Milady.  What  a  pleasure  it  is,  then,  what  a 
reward,  and  how  agreeable  a  lesson,  to  see  the  old  cap- 
tain humble  himself  to  the  son  of  the  man  whom  he  had 
personated!  Here,  and  throughout,  if  I  am  to  choose 
virtues  for  myself  or  my  friends,  let  me  choose  the  vir- 
tues of  d'Artagnan.  I  do  not  say  there  is  no  character 
as  well  drawn  in  Shakespeare;  I  do  say  there  is  none 
that  I  love  so  wholly.  There  are  many  spiritual  eyes 
that  seem  to  spy  upon  our  actions  —  eyes  of  the  dead 
and  the  absent,  whom  we  imagine  to  behold  us  in  our 
most  private  hours,  and  whom  we  fear  and  scruple  to 
offend:  our  witnesses  and  judges.  And  among  these, 
even  if  you  should  think  me  childish,  I  must  count  my 
d'Artagnan  —  not  d'Artagnan  of  the  memoirs  whom 
Thackeray  pretended  to  prefer  —  a  preference,  I  take  the 
freedom  of  saying,  in  which  he  stands  alone;  not  the 
d'Artagnan  of  flesh  and  blood,  but  him  of  the  ink  and 

324 


A  GOSSIP  ON   A  NOVEL  OF   DUMAS'S 

paper;  not  Nature's,  but  Dumas's.  And  this  is  the  par- 
ticular crown  and  triumph  of  the  artist  —  not  to  be  true 
merely,  but  to  be  lovable;  not  simply  to  convince,  but 
to  enchant. 

There  is  yet  another  point  in  the  Vicomte  which  I 
find  incomparable.  I  can  recall  no  other  work  of  the 
imagination  in  which  the  end  of  life  is  represented  with 
so  nice  a  tact.  I  was  asked  the  other  day  if  Dumas 
made  me  laugh  or  cry.  Well,  in  this  my  late  fifth  read- 
ing of  the  Vicomte,  I  did  laugh  once  at  the  small  Coque- 
lin  de  Voliere  business,  and  was  perhaps  a  thought 
surprised  at  having  done  so :  to  make  up  for  it,  I  smiled 
continually.  But  for  tears,  I  do  not  know.  If  you  put 
a  pistol  to  my  throat,  I  must  own  the  tale  trips  upon  a 
very  airy  foot — within  a  measurable  distance  of  unreal- 
ity;  and  for  those  who  like  the  big  guns  to  be  discharged 
and  the  great  passions  to  appear  authentically,  it  may 
even  seem  inadequate  from  first  to  last.  Not  so  to  me; 
I  cannot  count  that  a  poor  dinner,  or  a  poor  book, 
where  I  meet  with  those  I  love;  and,  above  all,  in  this 
last  volume,  I  find  a  singular  charm  of  spirit.  It  breathes 
a  pleasant  and  a  tonic  sadness,  always  brave,  never  hys- 
terical. Upon  the  crowded,  noisy  life  of  this  long  tale, 
evening  gradually  falls ;  and  the  lights  are  extinguished, 
and  the  heroes  pass  away  one  by  one.  One  by  one 
they  go,  and  not  a  regret  embitters  their  departure ;  the 
young  succeed  them  in  their  places,  Louis  Quatorze  is 
swelling  larger  and  shining  broader,  another  generation 
and  another  France  dawn  on  the  horizon;  but  for  us 
and  these  old  men  whom  we  have  loved  so  long  the 
inevitable  end  draws  near  and  is  welcome.  To  read 
this  well  is  to  anticipate  experience.     Ah,  if  only  when 

525 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

these  hours  of  the  long  shadows  fall  for  us  in  reality 
and  not  in  figure,  we  may  hope  to  face  them  with  a 
mind  as  quiet! 

But  my  paper  is  running  out;  the  siege  guns  are  fir- 
ing on  the  Dutch  frontier ;  and  I  must  say  adieu  for  the 
fifth  time  to  my  old  comrade  fallen  on  the  field  of  glory. 
Adieu  —  rather  au  revoir!  Yet  a  sixth  time,  dearest 
d'Artagnan,  we  shall  kidnap  Monk  and  take  horse  to- 
gether for  Belle  Isle. 


3* 


XV.    A  GOSSIP  ON  ROMANCE 

IN  anything  fit  to  be  called  by  the  name  of  reading, 
the  process  itself  should  be  absorbing  and  voluptu- 
ous ;  we  should  gloat  over  a  book,  be  rapt  clean  out  of 
ourselves,  and  rise  from  the  perusal,  our  mind  filled 
with  the  busiest,  kaleidoscopic  dance  of  images,  inca- 
pable of  sleep  or  of  continuous  thought.  The  words,  if 
the  book  be  eloquent,  should  run  thenceforward  in  our 
ears  like  the  noise  of  breakers,  and  the  story,  if  it  be  a 
story,  repeat  itself  in  a  thousand  coloured  pictures  to 
the  eye.  It  was  for  this  last  pleasure  that  we  read  so 
closely,  and  loved  our  books  so  dearly,  in  the  bright, 
troubled  period  of  boyhood.  Eloquence  and  thought, 
character  and  conversation,  were  but  obstacles  to  brush 
aside  as  we  dug  blithely  after  a  certain  sort  of  incident, 
like  a  pig  for  truffles.  For  my  part,  I  liked  a  story  to 
begin  with  an  old  wayside  inn  where,  "towards  the  close 
of  the  year  17 — ,"  several  gentlemen  in  three-cocked 
hats  were  playing  bowls.  A  friend  of  mine  preferred 
the  Malabar  coast  in  a  storm,  with  a  ship  beating  to 
windward,  and  a  scowling  fellow  of  Herculean  propor- 
tions striding  along  the  beach;  he,  to  be  sure,  was  a 
pirate.  This  was  further  afield  than  my  home-keeping 
fancy  loved  to  travel,  and  designed  altogether  for  a  larger 
canvas  than  the  tales  that  I  affected.  Give  me  a  high- 
wayman and  I  was  full  to  the  brim ;  a  Jacobite  would 

327 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

do,  but  the  highwayman  was  my  favourite  dish.  I  can 
still  hear  that  merry  clatter  of  the  hoofs  along  the  moon- 
lit lane;  night  and  the  coming  of  day  are  still  related  in 
my  mind  with  the  doings  of  John  Rann  or  Jerry  Aber- 
shaw;  and  the  words  "  postchaise,"  the  "great  North 
road,"  "ostler,"  and  "nag"  still  sound  in  my  ears  like 
poetry.  One  and  all,  at  least,  and  each  with  his  par- 
ticular fancy,  we  read  story-books  in  childhood,  not  for 
eloquence  or  character  or  thought,  but  for  some  quality 
of  the  brute  incident.  That  quality  was  not  mere  blood- 
shed or  wonder.  Although  each  of  these  was  welcome 
in  its  place,  the  charm  for  the  sake  of  which  we  read 
depended  on  something  different  from  either.  My  elders 
used  to  read  novels  aloud ;  and  I  can  still  remember  four 
different  passages  which  I  heard,  before  I  was  ten,  with 
the  same  keen  and  lasting  pleasure.  One  I  discovered 
long  afterwards  to  be  the  admirable  opening  of  What 
will  he  Do  with  It:  it  was  no  wonder  I  was  pleased  with 
that.  The  other  three  still  remain  unidentified.  One 
is  a  little  vague;  it  was  about  a  dark,  tall  house  at  night, 
and  people  groping  on  the  stairs  by  the  light  that  es- 
caped from  the  open  door  of  a  sickroom.  In  another, 
a  lover  left  a  ball,  and  went  walking  in  a  cool,  dewy 
park,  whence  he  could  watch  the  lighted  windows  and 
the  figures  of  the  dancers  as  they  moved.  This  was  the 
most  sentimental  impression  I  think  I  had  yet  received, 
for  a  child  is  somewhat  deaf  to  the  sentimental.  In  the 
last,  a  poet,  who  had  been  tragically  wrangling  with  his 
wife,  walked  forth  on  the  sea-beach  on  a  tempestuous 
night  and  witnessed  the  horrors  of  a  wreck.1    Different 

1  Since  traced  by  many  obliging  correspondents  to  the  gallery  of 
Charles  Kingsley. 

328 


A  GOSSIP  ON    ROMANCE 

as  they  are,  all  these  early  favourites  have  a  common 
note  —  they  have  all  a  touch  of  the  romantic. 

Drama  is  the  poetry  of  conduct,  romance  the  poetry 
of  circumstance.  The  pleasure  that  we  take  in  life  is 
of  two  sorts  —  the  active  and  the  passive.  Now  we 
are  conscious  of  a  great  command  over  our  destiny; 
anon  we  are  lifted  up  by  circumstance,  as  by  a  break- 
ing wave,  and  dashed  we  know  not  how  into  the 
future.  Now  we  are  pleased  by  our  conduct,  anon 
merely  pleased  by  our  surroundings.  It  would  be  hard 
to  say  which  of  these  modes  of  satisfaction  is  the  more 
effective,  but  the  latter  is  surely  the  more  constant. 
Conduct  is  three  parts  of  life,  they  say ;  but  I  think  they 
put  it  high.  There  is  a  vast  deal  in  life  and  letters  both 
which  is  not  immoral,  but  simply  a-moral;  which  either 
does  not  regard  the  human  will  at  all,  or  deals  with  it 
in  obvious  and  healthy  relations;  where  the  interest 
turns,  not  upon  what  a  man  shall  choose  to  do,  but  on 
how  he  manages  to  do  it ;  not  on  the  passionate  slips 
and  hesitations  of  the  conscience,  but  on  the  problems 
of  the  body  and  of  the  practical  intelligence,  in  clean, 
open-air  adventure,  the  shock  of  arms  or  the  diplomacy 
of  life.  With  such  material  as  this  it  is  impossible  to 
build  a  play,  for  the  serious  theatre  exists  solely  on 
moral  grounds,  and  is  a  standing  proof  of  the  dissem- 
ination of  the  human  conscience.  But  it  is  possible  to 
build,  upon  this  ground,  the  most  joyous  of  verses,  and 
the  most  lively,  beautiful,  and  buoyant  tales. 

One  thing  in  life  calls  for  another;  there  is  a  fitness  in 
events  and  places.  The  sight  of  a  pleasant  arbour  puts 
it  in  our  mind  to  sit  there.  One  place  suggests  work, 
another  idleness,  a  third  early  rising  and  long  rambles 

329 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

in  the  dew.  The  effect  of  night,  of  any  flowing  water, 
of  lighted  cities,  of  the  peep  of  day,  of  ships,  of  the 
open  ocean,  calls  up  in  the  mind  an  army  of  anony- 
mous desires  and  pleasures.  Something,  we  feel, 
should  happen ;  we  know  not  what,  yet  we  proceed  in 
quest  of  it.  And  many  of  the  happiest  hours  of  life 
fleet  by  us  in  this  vain  attendance  on  the  genius  of  the 
place  and  moment.  It  is  thus  that  tracts  of  young  fir, 
and  low  rocks  that  reach  into  deep  soundings,  particu- 
larly torture  and  delight  me.  Something  must  have 
happened  in  such  places,  and  perhaps  ages  back,  to 
members  of  my  race ;  and  when  I  was  a  child  I  tried  in 
vain  to  invent  appropriate  games  for  them,  as  I  still  try, 
just  as  vainly,  to  fit  them  with  the  proper  story.  Some 
places  speak  distinctly.  Certain  dank  gardens  cry  aloud 
for  a  murder ;  certain  old  houses  demand  to  be  haunted ; 
certain  coasts  are  set  apart  for  shipwreck.  Other  spots 
again  seem  to  abide  their  destiny,  suggestive  and  im- 
penetrable, "miching  mallecho."  The  inn  at  Burford 
Bridge,  with  its  arbours  and  green  garden  and  silent, 
eddying  river — though  it  is  known  already  as  the  place 
where  Keats  wrote  some  of  his  Endymion  and  Nelson 
parted  from  his  Emma  —  still  seems  to  wait  the  coming 
of  the  appropriate  legend.  Within  these  ivied  walls, 
behind  these  old  green  shutters,  some  further  business 
smoulders,  waiting  for  its  hour.  The  old  Hawes  Inn  at 
the  Queen's  Ferry  makes  a  similar  call  upon  my  fancy. 
There  it  stands,  apart  from  the  town,  beside  the  pier, 
in  a  climate  of  its  own,  half  inland,  half  marine  —  in 
front,  the  ferry  bubbling  with  the  tide  and  the  guard- 
ship  swinging  to  her  anchor;  behind,  the  old  garden 
with  the  trees.     Americans  seek  it  already  for  the  sake 

330 


A  GOSSIP   ON   ROMANCE 

of  Lovel  and  Oldbuck,  who  dined  there  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Antiquary.  But  you  need  not  tell  me  — 
that  is  not  all ;  there  is  some  story,  unrecorded  or  not 
yet  complete,  which  must  express  the  meaning  of  that 
inn  more  fully.  So  it  is  with  names  and  faces ;  so  it  is 
with  incidents  that  are  idle  and  inconclusive  in  them- 
selves, and  yet  seem  like  the  beginning  of  some  quaint 
romance,  which  the  all-careless  author  leaves  untold. 
How  many  of  these  romances  have  we  not  seen  deter- 
mine at  their  birth;  how  many  people  have  met  us 
with  a  look  of  meaning  in  their  eye,  and  sunk  at  once 
into  trivial  acquaintances ;  to  how  many  places  have  we 
not  drawn  near,  with  express  intimations — "here  my 
destiny  awaits  me  " —  and  we  have  but  dined  there  and 
passed  on!  I  have  lived  both  at  the  Hawes  and  Bur- 
ford  in  a  perpetual  flutter,  on  the  heels,  as  it  seemed,  of 
some  adventure  that  should  justify  the  place;  but 
though  the  feeling  had  me  to  bed  at  night  and  called 
me  again  at  morning  in  one  unbroken  round  of  pleas- 
ure and  suspense,  nothing  befell  me  in  either  worth 
remark.  The  man  or  the  hour  had  not  yet  come ;  but 
some  day,  I  think,  a  boat  shall  put  off  from  the  Queen's 
Ferry,  fraught  with  a  dear  cargo,  and  some  frosty  night 
a  horseman,  on  a  tragic  errand,  rattle  with  his  whip 
upon  the  green  shutters  of  the  inn  at  Burford.1 

Now,  this  is  one  of  the  natural  appetites  with  which 
any  lively  literature  has  to  count.  The  desire  for  knowl- 
edge, I  had  almost  added  the  desire  for  meat,  is  not 
more  deeply  seated  than  this  demand  for  fit  and  strik- 

i  Since  the  above  was  written  I  have  tried  to  launch  the  boat  with 
my  own  hands  in  Kidnapped.  Some  day,  perhaps,  1  may  try  a  rat- 
tle at  the  shutters. 

33« 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

ing  incident.  The  dullest  of  clowns  tells,  or  tries  to 
tell,  himself  a  story,  as  the  feeblest  of  children  uses  in- 
vention in  his  play ;  and  even  as  the  imaginative  grown 
person,  joining  in  the  game,  at  once  enriches  it  with 
many  delightful  circumstances,  the  great  creative  writer 
shows  us  the  realisation  and  the  apotheosis  of  the  day- 
dreams of  common  men.  His  stories  may  be  nourished 
with  the  realities  of  life,  but  their  true  mark  is  to  satisfy 
the  nameless  longings  of  the  reader,  and  to  obey  the 
ideal  laws  of  the  day-dream.  The  right  kind  of  thing 
should  fall  out  in  the  right  kind  of  place;  the  right  kind 
of  thing  should  follow ;  and  not  only  the  characters  talk 
aptly  and  think  naturally,  but  all  the  circumstances  in  a 
tale  answer  one  to  another  like  notes  in  music.  The 
threads  of  a  story  come  from  time  to  time  together  and 
make  a  picture  in  the  web ;  the  characters  fall  from  time 
to  time  into  some  attitude  to  each  other  or  to  nature,  which 
stamps  the  story  home  like  an  illustration.  Crusoe  re- 
coiling from  the  footprint,  Achilles  shouting  over  against 
the  Trojans,  Ulysses  bending  the  great  bow,  Christian 
running  with  his  fingers  in  his  ears,  these  are  each  cul- 
minating moments  in  the  legend,  and  each  has  been 
printed  on  the  mind's  eye  forever.  Other  things  we 
may  forget;  we  may  forget  the  words,  although  they 
are  beautiful ;  we  may  forget  the  author's  comment,  al- 
though perhaps  it  was  ingenious  and  true;  but  these 
epoch-making  scenes,  which  put  the  last  mark  of  truth 
upon  a  story  and  fill  up,  at  one  blow,  our  capacity  for 
sympathetic  pleasure,  we  so  adopt  into  the  very  bosom 
of  our  mind  that  neither  time  nor  tide  can  efface  or 
weaken  the  impression.  This,  then,  is  the  plastic  part 
of  literature :  to  embody  character,  thought,  or  emotion 


A   GOSSIP  ON   ROMANCE 

in  some  act  or  attitude  that  shall  be  remarkably  striking 
to  the  mind's  eye.  This  is  the  highest  and  hardest 
thing  to  do  in  words;  the  thing  which,  once  accom- 
plished, equally  delights  the  schoolboy  and  the  sage, 
and  makes,  in  its  own  right,  the  quality  of  epics.  Com- 
pared with  this,  all  other  purposes  in  literature,  except 
the  purely  lyrical  or  the  purely  philosophic,  are  bastard 
in  nature,  facile  of  execution,  and  feeble  in  result.  It  is 
one  thing  to  write  about  the  inn  at  Burford,  or  to  de- 
scribe scenery  with  the  word-painters;  it  is  quite  an- 
other to  seize  on  the  heart  of  the  suggestion  and  make 
a  country  famous  with  a  legend.  It  is  one  thing  to  re- 
mark and  to  dissect,  with  the  most  cutting  logic,  the 
complications  of  life,  and  of  the  human  spirit;  it  is  quite 
another  to  give  them  body  and  blood  in  the  story  of 
Ajax  or  of  Hamlet.  The  first  is  literature,  but  the  second 
is  something  besides,  for  it  is  likewise  art. 

English  people  of  the  present  day1  are  apt,  I  know  not 
why,  to  look  somewhat  down  on  incident,  and  reserve 
their  admiration  for  the  clink  of  teaspoons  and  the  accents 
of  the  curate.  It  is  thought  clever  to  write  a  novel  with 
no  story  at  all,  or  at  least  with  a  very  dull  one.  Re- 
duced even  to  the  lowest  terms,  a  certain  interest  can 
be  communicated  by  the  art  of  narrative ;  a  sense  of  hu- 
man kinship  stirred ;  and  a  kind  of  monotonous  fitness, 
comparable  to  the  words  and  air  of  Sandy's  Mull,  pre- 
served among  the  infinitesimal  occurrences  recorded. 
Some  people  work,  in  this  manner,  with  even  a  strong 
touch.  Mr.  Trollope's  inimitable  clergymen  naturally 
arise  to  the  mind  in  this  connection.  But  even  Mr. 
Trollope  does  not  confine  himself  to  chronicling  smaJ1 

11882. 

333 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

beer.  Mr.  Crawley's  collision  with  the  Bishop's  wife, 
Mr.  Melnette  dallying  in  the  deserted  banquet-room, 
are  typical  incidents,  epically  conceived,  fitly  embodying 
a  crisis.  Or  again  look  at  Thackeray.  If  Rawdon  Craw- 
ley's blow  were  not  delivered,  Vanity  Fair  would  cease 
to  be  a  work  of  art.  That  scene  is  the  chief  ganglion 
of  the  tale ;  and  the  discharge  of  energy  from  Rawdon's 
fist  is  the  reward  and  consolation  of  the  reader.  The 
end  of  Esmond  is  a  yet  wider  excursion  from  the  author's 
customary  fields ;  the  scene  at  Castlewood  is  pure  Du- 
mas; the  great  and  wily  English  borrower  has  here  bor- 
rowed from  the  great,  unblushing  French  thief;  as  usual, 
he  has  borrowed  admirably  well,  and  the  breaking  of 
the  sword  rounds  off  the  best  of  all  his  books  with  a 
manly,  martial  note.  But  perhaps  nothing  can  more 
strongly  illustrate  the  necessity  for  marking  incident 
than  to  compare  the  living  fame  of  Robinson  Crusoe 
with  the  discredit  of  Clarissa  Harlowe.  Clarissa  is  a 
book  of  a  far  more  startling  import,  worked  out,  on  a 
great  canvas,  with  inimitable  courage  and  unflagging 
art.  It  contains  wit,  character,  passion,  plot,  conversa- 
tions full  of  spirit  and  insight,  letters  sparkling  with  un- 
strained humanity ;  and  if  the  death  of  the  heroine  be 
somewhat  frigid  and  artificial,  the  last  days  of  the  hero 
strike  the  only  note  of  what  we  now  call  Byronism,  be- 
tween the  Elizabethans  and  Byron  himself.  And  yet  a 
little  story  of  a  shipwrecked  sailor,  with  not  a  tenth 
part  of  the  style  nor  a  thousandth  part  of  the  wisdom, 
exploring  none  of  the  arcana  of  humanity  and  de- 
prived of  the  perennial  interest  of  love,  goes  on  from 
edition  to  edition,  ever  young,  while  Clarissa  lies  upon 
the  shelves  unread.     A  friend  of  mine,  a  Welsh  black- 

334 


A  GOSSIP  ON   ROMANCE 

smith,  was  twenty-five  years  old  and  could  neither 
read  nor  write,  when  he  heard  a  chapter  of  Robinson 
read  aloud  in  a  farm  kitchen.  Up  to  that  moment  he 
had  sat  content,  huddled  in  his  ignorance,  but  he  left 
that  farm  another  man.  There  were  day-dreams,  it  ap- 
peared, divine  day-dreams,  written  and  printed  and 
bound,  and  to  be  bought  for  money  and  enjoyed  at 
pleasure.  Down  he  sat  that  day,  painfully  learned  to 
read  Welsh,  and  returned  to  borrow  the  book.  It  had 
been  lost,  nor  could  he  find  another  copy  but  one  that 
was  in  English.  Down  he  sat  once  more,  learned  Eng- 
lish, and  at  length,  and  with  entire  delight,  read  Robin- 
son. It  is  like  the  story  of  a  love-chase.  If  he  had 
heard  a  letter  from  Clarissa,  would  he  have  been  fired 
with  the  same  chivalrous  ardour?  I  wonder.  Yet 
Clarissa  has  every  quality  that  can  be  shown  in  prose, 
one  alone  excepted  —  pictorial  or  picture-making  ro- 
mance. While  Robinson  depends,  for  the  most  part 
and  with  the  overwhelming  majority  of  its  readers,  on 
the  charm  of  circumstance. 

In  the  highest  achievements  of  the  art  of  words,  the 
dramatic  and  the  pictorial,  the  moral  and  romantic  in- 
terest, rise  and  fall  together  by  a  common  and  organic 
law.  Situation  is  animated  with  passion,  passion 
clothed  upon  with  situation.  Neither  exists  for  itself, 
but  each  inheres  indissolubly  with  the  other.  This  is 
high  art;  and  not  only  the  highest  art  possible  in  words, 
but  the  highest  art  of  all,  since  it  combines  the  greatest 
mass  and  diversity  of  the  elements  of  truth  and  pleasure. 
Such  are  epics,  and  the  few  prose  tales  that  have  the 
epic  weight.  But  as  from  a  school  of  works,  aping  the 
creative,  incident  and  romance  are  ruthlessly  discarded, 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

so  may  character  and  drama  be  omitted  or  subordinated 
to  romance.  There  is  one  book,  for  example,  more 
generally  loved  than  Shakespeare,  that  captivates  in 
childhood,  and  still  delights  in  age  —  I  mean  the  Ara- 
bian Nights —  where  you  shall  look  in  vain  for  moral  or 
for  intellectual  interest.  No  human  face  or  voice  greets 
us  among  that  wooden  crowd  of  kings  and  genies,  sor- 
cerers and  beggarmen.  Adventure,  on  the  most  naked 
terms,  furnishes  forth  the  entertainment  and  is  found 
enough.  Dumas  approaches  perhaps  nearest  of  any 
modern  to  these  Arabian  authors  in  the  purely  material 
charm  of  some  of  his  romances.  The  early  part  of 
Monte  Cristo,  down  to  the  finding  of  the  treasure,  is  a 
piece  of  perfect  story-telling;  the  man  never  breathed 
who  shared  these  moving  incidents  without  a  tremor; 
and  yet  Faria  is  a  thing  of  packthread  and  Dantes  little 
more  than  a  name.  The  sequel  is  one  long-drawn 
error,  gloomy,  bloody,  unnatural  and  dull;  but  as  for 
these  early  chapters,  I  do  not  believe  there  is  another 
volume  extant  where  you  can  breathe  the  same  unmin- 
gled  atmosphere  of  romance.  It  is  very  thin  and  light, 
to  be  sure,  as  on  a  high  mountain;  but  it  is  brisk  and 
clear  and  sunny  in  proportion.  I  saw  the  other  day, 
with  envy,  an  old  and  a  very  clever  lady  setting  forth 
on  a  second  or  third  voyage  into  Monte  Cristo.  Here 
are  stories  which  powerfully  affect  the  reader,  which 
can  be  reperused  at  any  age,  and  where  the  characters 
are  no  more  than  puppets.  The  bony  fist  of  the  show- 
man visibly  propels  them;  their  springs  are  an  open 
secret;  their  faces  are  of  wood,  their  bellies  filled  with 
bran ;  and  yet  we  thrillingly  partake  of  their  adventures. 
And  the  point  may  be  illustrated  still  further.     The  last 


A   GOSSIP  ON    ROMANCE 

interview  between  Lucy  and  Richard  Feverel  is  pure 
drama ;  more  than  that,  it  is  the  strongest  scene,  since 
Shakespeare,  in  the  English  tongue.  Their  first  meet- 
ing by  the  river,  on  the  other  hand,  is  pure  romance;  it 
has  nothing  to  do  with  character;  it  might  happen  to 
any  other  boy  and  maiden,  and  be  none  the  less  delight- 
ful for  the  change.  And  yet  I  think  he  would  be  a  bold 
man  who  should  choose  between  these  passages.  Thus, 
in  the  same  book,  we  may  have  two  scenes,  each  capi- 
tal in  its  order:  in  the  one,  human  passion,  deep  calling 
unto  deep,  shall  utter  its  genuine  voice;  in  the  second, 
according  circumstances,  like  instruments  in  tune,  shall 
build  up  a  trivial  but  desirable  incident,  such  as  we  love 
to  prefigure  for  ourselves;  and  in  the  end,  in  spite  of 
the  critics,  we  may  hesitate  to  give  the  preference  to 
either.  The  one  may  ask  more  genius — I  do  not  say  it 
does;  but  at  least  the  other  dwells  as  clearly  in  the 
memory. 

True  romantic  art,  again,  makes  a  romance  of  all 
things.  It  reaches  into  the  highest  abstraction  of  the 
ideal;  it  does  not  refuse  the  most  pedestrian  realism. 
Robinson  Crusoe  is  as  realistic  as  it  is  romantic:  both 
qualities  are  pushed  to  an  extreme,  and  neither  suffers. 
Nor  does  romance  depend  upon  the  material  importance 
of  the  incidents.  To  deal  with  strong  and  deadly  ele- 
ments, banditti,  pirates,  war  and  murder,  is  to  conjure 
with  great  names,  and,  in  the  event  of  failure,  to  double 
the  disgrace.  The  arrival  of  Haydn  and  Consuelo  at 
the  Canon's  villa  is  a  very  trifling  incident;  yet  we  may 
read  a  dozen  boisterous  stories  from  beginning  to  end, 
and  not  receive  so  fresh  and  stirring  an  impression  of 
adventure.     It  was  the  scene  of  Crusoe  at  the  wreck, 

337 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

if  I  remember  rightly,  that  so  bewitched  my  blacksmith. 
Nor  is  the  fact  surprising.  Every  single  article  the  cast- 
away recovers  from  the  hulk  is  "a  joy  for  ever"  to  the 
man  who  reads  of  them.  They  are  the  things  that 
should  be  found,  and  the  bare  enumeration  stirs  the 
blood.  I  found  a  glimmer  of  the  same  interest  the  other 
day  in  a  new  book,  The  Sailor's  Sweetheart,  by  Mr. 
Clark  Russell.  The  whole  business  of  the  brig  Morn- 
ing Star  is  very  rightly  felt  and  spiritedly  written ;  but 
the  clothes,  the  books  and  the  money  satisfy  the  read- 
er's mind  like  things  to  eat.  We  are  dealing  here  with 
the  old  cut-and-dry,  legitimate  interest  of  treasure  trove. 
But  even  treasure  trove  can  be  made  dull.  There  are 
few  people  who  have  not  groaned  under  the  plethora 
of  goods  that  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  Swiss  Family  Robin- 
son, that  dreary  family.  They  found  article  after  arti- 
cle, creature  after  creature,  from  milk  kine  to  pieces  of 
ordnance,  a  whole  consignment ;  but  no  informing  taste 
had  presided  over  the  selection,  there  was  no  smack  or 
relish  in  the  invoice ;  and  these  riches  left  the  fancy  cold. 
The  box  of  goods  in  Verne's  Mysterious  Island  is  another 
case  in  point :  there  was  no  gusto  and  no  glamour  about 
that;  it  might  have  come  from  a  shop.  But  the  two 
hundred  and  seventy-eight  Australian  sovereigns  on 
board  the  Morning  Star  fell  upon  me  like  a  surprise  that 
1  had  expected ;  whole  vistas  of  secondary  stories,  be- 
sides the  one  in  hand,  radiated  forth  from  that  discovery, 
as  they  radiate  from  a  striking  particular  in  life ;  and  \ 
was  made  for  the  moment  as  happy  as  a  reader  has  the 
right  to  be. 

To  come  at  all  at  the  nature  of  this  quality  of  ro- 
mance, we  must  bear  in  mind  the  peculiarity  of  our  atti- 

33« 


A  GOSSIP  ON   ROMANCE 

tude  to  any  art.  No  art  produces  illusion ;  in  the  theatre 
we  never  forget  that  we  are  in  the  theatre ;  and  while 
we  read  a  story,  we  sit  wavering  between  two  minds, 
now  merely  clapping  our  hands  at  the  merit  of  the  per- 
formance, now  condescending  to  take  an  active  part  in 
fancy  with  the  characters.  This  last  is  the  triumph  of 
romantic  story-telling:  when  the  reader  consciously 
plays  at  being  the  hero,  the  scene  is  a  good  scene.  Now 
in  character-studies  the  pleasure  that  we  take  is  critical ; 
we  watch,  we  approve,  we  smile  at  incongruities,  we 
are  moved  to  sudden  heats  of  sympathy  with  courage, 
suffering  or  virtue.  But  the  characters  are  still  them- 
selves, they  are  not  us ;  the  more  clearly  they  are  de- 
picted, the  more  widely  do  they  stand  away  from  us, 
the  more  imperiously  do  they  thrust  us  back  into  our 
place  as  a  spectator.  I  cannot  identify  myself  with 
Rawdon  Crawley  or  with  Eugene  de  Rastignac,  for  I 
have  scarce  a  hope  or  fear  in  common  with  them.  It  is 
not  character  but  incident  that  woos  us  out  of  our  re- 
serve. Something  happens  as  we  desire  to  have  it 
happen  to  ourselves ;  some  situation,  that  we  have  long 
dallied  with  in  fancy,  is  realised  in  the  story  with  entic- 
ing and  appropriate  details.  Then  we  forget  the  char- 
acters; then  we  push  the  hero  aside;  then  we  plunge 
into  the  tale  in  our  own  person  and  bathe  in  fresh  ex- 
perience; and  then,  and  then  only,  do  we  say  we  have 
been  reading  a  romance.  It  is  not  only  pleasurable 
things  that  we  imagine  in  our  day-dreams;  there  are 
lights  in  which  we  are  willing  to  contemplate  even  the 
idea  of  our  own  death ;  ways  in  which  it  seems  as  if  it 
would  amuse  us  to  be  cheated,  wounded  or  calumni- 
ated.    It  is  thus  possible  to  construct  a  story,  even  of 

?19 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

tragic  import,  in  which  every  incident,  detail  and  trick 
of  circumstance  shall  be  welcome  to  the  reader's 
thoughts.  Fiction  is  to  the  grown  man  what  play  is 
to  the  child ;  it  is  there  that  he  changes  the  atmosphere 
and  tenor  of  his  life;  and  when  the  game  so  chimes 
with  his  fancy  that  he  can  join  in  it  with  all  his  heart, 
when  it  pleases  him  with  every  turn,  when  he  loves  to 
recall  it  and  dwells  upon  its  recollection  with  entire  de- 
light, fiction  is  called  romance. 

Walter  Scott  is  out  and  away  the  king  of  the  roman- 
tics. The  Lady  of  the  Lake  has  no  indisputable  claim  to 
be  a  poem  beyond  the  inherent  fitness  and  desirability 
of  the  tale.  It  is  just  such  a  story  as  a  man  would  make 
up  for  himself,  walking,  in  the  best  health  and  temper, 
through  just  such  scenes  as  it  is  laid  in.  Hence  it  is  that 
a  charm  dwells  undefinable  among  these  slovenly  verses, 
as  the  unseen  cuckoo  fills  the  mountains  with  his  note; 
hence,  even  after  we  have  flung  the  book  aside,  the 
scenery  and  adventures  remain  present  to  the  mind,  a 
new  and  green  possession,  not  unworthy  of  that  beau- 
tiful name,  The  Lady  of  the  Lake,  or  that  direct,  roman- 
tic opening, —  one  of  the  most  spirited  and  poetical  in 
literature, — "The  stag  at  eve  had  drunk  his  fill."  The 
same  strength  and  the  same  weaknesses  adorn  and  dis- 
figure the  novels.  In  that  ill-written,  ragged  book,  The 
Pirate,  the  figure  of  Cleveland  —  cast  up  by  the  sea  on 
the  resounding  foreland  of  Dunrossness  —  moving,  with 
the  blood  on  his  hands  and  the  Spanish  words  on  his 
tongue,  among  the  simple  islanders  —  singing  a  sere- 
nade under  the  window  of  his  Shetland  mistress  —  is 
conceived  in  the  very  highest  manner  of  romantic  inven- 
tion.    The  words  of  his  song,   "Through  groves  ot 

340 


A  GOSSIP  ON   ROMANCE 

palm,"  sung  in  such  a  scene  and  by  such  a  lover,  clench, 
as  in  a  nutshell,  the  emphatic  contrast  upon  which  the 
tale  is  built.  In  Guy  Mannering,  again,  every  incident 
is  delightful  to  the  imagination;  and  the  scene  when 
Harry  Bertram  lands  at  Ellangowan  is  a  model  instance 
of  romantic  method. 

"  •  I  remember  the  tune  well,'  he  says,  'though  I  can- 
not guess  what  should  at  present  so  strongly  recall  it 
to  my  memory.'  He  took  his  flageolet  from  his  pocket 
and  played  a  simple  melody.  Apparently  the  tune 
awoke  the  corresponding  associations  of  a  damsel.  .  . 
She  immediately  took  up  the  song  — 

"  '  Are  these  the  links  of  Forth,  she  said; 

Or  are  they  the  crooks  of  Dee, 
Or  the  bonny  woods  of  Warroch  Head 

That  I  so  fain  would  see  ? ' 

" '  By  heaven ! '  said  Bertram,  *  it  is  the  very  ballad. ' " 
On  this  quotation  two  remarks  fall  to  be  made.  First, 
as  an  instance  of  modern  feeling  for  romance,  this  famous 
touch  of  the  flageolet  and  the  old  song  is  selected  by 
Miss  Braddon  for  omission.  Miss  Braddon's  idea  of  a 
story,  like  Mrs.  Todgers's  idea  of  a  wooden  leg,  were 
something  strange  to  have  expounded.  As  a  matter  of 
personal  experience,  Meg's  appearance  to  old  Mr.  Ber- 
tram on  the  road,  the  ruins  of  Derncleugh,  the  scene  of 
the  flageolet,  and  the  Dominie's  recognition  of  Harry, 
are  the  four  strong  notes  that  continue  to  ring  in  the 
mind  after  the  book  is  laid  aside.  The  second  point  is 
still  more  curious.  The  reader  will  observe  a  mark  of 
excision  in  the  passage  as  quoted  by  me.  Well,  here  is 
how  it  runs  in  the  original:  "a  damsel,  who,  close  be- 

34» 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

hind  a  fine  spring  about  half-way  down  the  descent, 
and  which  had  once  supplied  the  castle  with  water,  was 
engaged  in  bleaching  linen."  A  man  who  gave  in  such 
copy  would  be  discharged  from  the  staff  of  a  daily  paper. 
Scott  has  forgotten  to  prepare  the  reader  for  the  pres- 
ence of  the  "damsel";  he  has  forgotten  to  mention  the 
spring  and  its  relation  to  the  ruin ;  and  now,  face  to  face 
with  his  omission,  instead  of  trying  back  and  starting 
fair,  crams  all  this  matter,  tail  foremost,  into  a  single 
shambling  sentence.  It  is  not  merely  bad  English,  or 
bad  style ;  it  is  abominably  bad  narrative  besides. 

Certainly  the  contrast  is  remarkable ;  and  it  is  one  that 
throws  a  strong  light  upon  the  subject  of  this  paper. 
For  here  we  have  a  man  of  the  finest  creative  instinct 
touching  with  perfect  certainty  and  charm  the  romantic 
junctures  of  his  story ;  and  we  find  him  utterly  careless, 
almost,  it  would  seem,  incapable,  in  the  technical  mat- 
ter of  style,  and  not  only  frequently  weak,  but  frequently 
wrong  in  points  of  drama.  In  character  parts,  indeed, 
and  particularly  in  the  Scotch,  he  was  delicate,  strong 
and  truthful ;  but  the  trite,  obliterated  features  of  too 
many  of  his  heroes  have  already  wearied  two  genera- 
tions of  readers.  At  times  his  characters  will  speak  with 
something  far  beyond  propriety  with  a  true  heroic  note ; 
but  on  the  next  page  they  will  be  wading  wearily  for- 
ward with  an  ungrammatical  and  undramatic  rigmarole 
of  words.  The  man  who  could  conceive  and  write  the 
character  of  Elspeth  of  the  Craigburnfoot,  as  Scott  has 
conceived  and  written  it,  had  not  only  splendid  roman- 
tic, but  splendid  tragic  gifts.  How  comes  it,  then,  that 
he  could  so  often  fob  us  off  with  languid,  inarticulate 
twaddle  ? 

342 


A  GOSSIP  ON   ROMANCE 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  explanation  is  to  be  found  in 
the  very  quality  of  his  surprising  merits.  As  his  books 
are  play  to  the  reader,  so  were  they  play  to  him.  He 
conjured  up  the  romantic  with  delight,  but  he  had 
hardly  patience  to  describe  it.  He  was  a  great  day- 
dreamer,  a  seer  of  fit  and  beautiful  and  humorous  vis- 
ions, but  hardly  a  great  artist;  hardly,  in  trie  manful 
sense,  an  artist  at  all.  He  pleased  himself,  and  so  he 
pleases  us.  Of  the  pleasures  of  his  art  he  tasted  fully; 
but  of  its  toils  and  vigils  and  distresses  never  man  knew 
less.     A  great  romantic  —  an  idle  child. 


3-,  J 


XVI.    A  HUMBLE  REMONSTRANCE1 


WE  have  recently2  enjoyed  a  quite  peculiar  plea- 
sure: hearing,  in  some  detail,  the  opinions, 
about  the  art  they  practise,  of  Mr.  Walter  Besant  and 
Mr.  Henry  James ;  two  men  certainly  of  very  different 
calibre :  Mr.  James  so  precise  of  outline,  so  cunning  of 
fence,  so  scrupulous  of  finish,  and  Mr.  Besant  so  genial, 
so  friendly,  with  so  persuasive  and  humorous  a  vein  of 
whim:  Mr.  James  the  very  type  of  the  deliberate  artist, 
Mr.  Besant  the  impersonation  of  good  nature.  That 
such  doctors  should  differ  will  excite  no  great  surprise; 
but  one  point  in  which  they  seem  to  agree  fills  me,  f 
confess,  with  wonder.  For  they  are  both  content  to 
talk  about  the  "art  of  fiction;  "  and  Mr.  Besant,  wax- 
ing exceedingly  bold,  goes  on  to  oppose  this  so-called 
"  art  of  fiction  "  to  the  "art  of  poetry."  By  the  art  of 
poetry  he  can  mean  nothing  but  the  art  of  verse,  an  art 
of  handicraft,  and  only  comparable  with  the  art  of 
prose.  For  that  heat  and  height  of  sane  emotion  which 
we  agree  to  call  by  the  name  of  poetry,  is  but  a  liber- 
tine and  vagrant  quality ;  present,  at  times,  in  any  art, 

1  This  paper,  which  does  not  otherwise  fit  the  present  volume,  is  re- 
printed here  as  the  proper  continuation  of  the  last. 
'  21884. 

344 


A   HUMBLE  REMONSTRANCE 

more  often  absent  from  them  all;  too  seldom  present  in 
the  prose  novel,  too  frequently  absent  from  the  ode  and 
epic.  Fiction  is  in  the  same  case;  it  is  no  substantive 
art,  but  an  element  which  enters  largely  into  all  the  arts 
but  architecture.  Homer,  Wordsworth,  Phidias,  Ho- 
garth, and  Salvini,  all  deal  in  fiction ;  and  yet  I  do  not 
suppose  that  either  Hogarth  or  Salvini,  to  mention  but 
these  two,  entered  in  any  degree  into  the  scope  of  Mr. 
Besant's  interesting  lecture  or  Mr.  James's  charming 
essay.  The  art  of  fiction,  then,  regarded  as  a  definition, 
is  both  too  ample  and  too  scanty.  Let  me  suggest  an- 
other; let  me  suggest  that  what  both  Mr.  James  and 
Mr.  Besant  had  in  view  was  neither  more  nor  less  than 
the  art  of  narrative. 

But  Mr.  Besant  is  anxious  to  speak  solely  of  "the 
modern  English  novel,"  the  stay  and  bread-winner  of 
Mr.  Mudie;  and  in  the  author  of  the  most  pleasing  novel 
on  that  roll,  All  Sorts  and  Conditions  of  Men,  the  de- 
sire is  natural  enough.  I  can  conceive  then,  that  he 
would  hasten  to  propose  two  additions,  and  read  thus : 
the  art  of  fictitious  narrative  in  prose. 

Now  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  the  modern  English 
novel  is  not  to  be  denied ;  materially,  with  its  three  vol- 
umes, leaded  type,  and  gilded  lettering,  it  is  easily  distin- 
guishable from  other  forms  of  literature ;  but  to  talk  at 
all  fruitfully  of  any  branch  of  art,  it  is  needful  to  build 
our  definitions  on  some  more  fundamental  ground  than 
binding.  Why,  then,  are  we  to  add  "in  prose?"  The 
Odyssey  appears  to  me  the  best  of  romances  ;  The 
Lady  of  the  Lake  to  stand  high  in  the  second  order;  and 
Chaucer's  tales  and  prologues  to  contain  more  of  the 
matter  and  art  of  the  modern  English  novel  than  the 

345 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

whole  treasury  of  Mr.  Mudie.  Whether  a  narrative  be 
written  in  blank  verse  or  the  Spenserian  stanza,  in  the 
long  period  of  Gibbon  or  the  chipped  phrase  of  Charles 
Reade,  the  principles  of  the  art  of  narrative  must  be 
equally  observed.  The  choice  of  a  noble  and  swelling 
style  in  prose  affects  the  problem  of  narration  in  the  same 
way,  if  not  to  the  same  degree,  as  the  choice  of  meas- 
ured verse ;  for  both  imply  a  closer  synthesis  of  events, 
a  higher  key  of  dialogue,  and  a  more  picked  and  stately 
strain  of  words.  If  you  are  to  refuse  Don  Juan,  it  is 
hard  to  see  why  you  should  include  Zanoni  or  (to 
bracket  works  of  very  different  value)  The  Scarlet  Letter; 
and  by  what  discrimination  are  you  to  open  your  doors 
to  The  Pilgrim's  Progress  and  close  them  on  The  Faery 
Queen  ?  To  bring  things  closer  home,  I  will  here  pro- 
pound to  Mr.  Besant  a  conundrum.  A  narrative  called 
Paradise  Lost  was  written  in  English  verse  by  one  John 
Milton ;  what  was  it  then  ?  It  was  next  translated  by 
Chateaubriand  into  French  prose ;  and  what  was  it  then  ? 
Lastly,  the  French  translation  was,  by  some  inspired 
compatriot  of  George  Gilfillan  (and  of  mine)  turned 
bodily  into  an  English  novel ;  and,  in  the  name  of  clear- 
ness, what  was  it  then  ? 

But,  once  more,  why  should  we  add  "fictitious?" 
The  reason  why  is  obvious.  The  reason  why  not,  if 
something  more  recondite,  does  not  want  for  weight. 
The  art  of  narrative,  m  fact,  is  the  same,  whether  it  is 
applied  to  the  selection  and  illustration  of  a  real  series 
of  events  or  of  an  imaginary  series.  Boswell's  Life  of 
Johnson  (a  work  of  cunning  and  inimitable  art)  owes  its 
success  to  the  same  technical  manoeuvres  as  (let  us  say) 
Tom  Jones :  the  clear  conception  of  certain  characters  of 

346 


A   HUMBLE   REMONSTRANCE 

man,  the  choice  and  presentation  of  certain  incidents  out 
of  a  great  number  that  offered,  and  the  invention  (yes 
invention)  and  preservation  of  a  certain  key  in  dialogue. 
In  which  these  things  are  done  with  the  more  art — in 
which  with  the  greater  air  of  nature —  readers  will  dif- 
ferently judge.  Boswell's  is,  indeed,  a  very  special  case, 
and  almost  a  generic ;  but  it  is  not  only  in  Boswell,  it  is 
in  every  biography  with  any  salt  of  life,  it  is  in  every 
history  where  events  and  men,  rather  than  ideas,  are 
presented  —  in  Tacitus,  in  Carlyle,  in  Michelet,  in  Ma- 
caulay  —  that  the  novelist  will  find  many  of  his  own 
methods  most  conspicuously  and  adroitly  handled.  He 
will  find  besides  that  he,  who  is  free  —  who  has  the 
right  to  invent  or  steal  a  missing  incident,  who  has  the 
right,  more  precious  still,  of  wholesale  omission  —  is 
frequently  defeated,  and,  with  all  his  advantages,  leaves 
a  less  strong  impression  of  reality  and  passion.  Mr. 
James  utters  his  mind  with  a  becoming  fervour  on  the 
sanctity  of  truth  to  the  novelist ;  on  a  more  careful  ex- 
amination truth  will  seem  a  word  of  very  debatable 
propriety,  not  only  for  the  labours  of  the  novelist,  but 
for  those  of  the  historian.  No  art  —  to  use  the  daring 
phrase  of  Mr.  James  —  can  successfully  "  compete  with 
life;"  and  the  art  that  seeks  to  do  so  is  condemned  to 
perish  montibus  avtis.  Life  goes  before  us,  infinite  in 
complication;  attended  by  the  most  various  and  sur- 
prising meteors;  appealing  at  once  to  the  eye,  to  the 
ear,  to  the  mind  —  the  seat  ot  wonder,  to  the  touch  — 
so  thrillingly  delicate,  and  to  the  belly  —  so  imperious 
when  starved.  It  combines  and  employs  in  its  mani- 
festation the  method  and  material,  not  of  one  art  only, 
but  of  all  the  arts.     Music  is  but  an  arbitrary  trifling 

347 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

with  a  few  of  life's  majestic  chords ;  painting  is  but  a 
shadow  of  its  pageantry  of  light  and  colour ;  literature 
does  but  drily  indicate  that  wealth  of  incident,  of  moral 
obligation,  of  virtue,  vice,  action,  rapture  and  agony, 
with  which  it  teems.  To  "compete  with  life,"  whose 
sun  we  cannot  look  upon,  whose  passions  and  diseases 
waste  and  slay  us  —  to  compete  with  the  flavour  of 
wine,  the  beauty  of  the  dawn,  the  scorching  of  fire,  the 
bitterness  of  death  and  separation  —  here  is,  indeed,  a 
projected  escalade  of  heaven ;  here  are,  indeed,  labours 
for  a  Hercules  in  a  dress  coat,  armed  with  a  pen  and  a 
dictionary  to  depict  the  passions,  armed  with  a  tube  of 
superior  flake-white  to  paint  the  portrait  of  the  insuffer- 
able sun.  No  art  is  true  in  this  sense :  none  can  ' '  com- 
pete with  life:"  not  even  history,  built  indeed  of  indis- 
putable facts,  but  these  facts  robbed  of  their  vivacity  and 
sting;  so  that  even  when  we  read  of  the  sack  of  a  city 
or  the  fall  of  an  empire,  we  are  surprised,  and  justly 
commend  the  author's  talent,  if  our  pulse  be  quickened. 
And  mark,  for  a  last  differentia,  that  this  quickening  of 
the  pulse  is,  in  almost  every  case,  purely  agreeable; 
that  these  phantom  reproductions  of  experience,  even 
at  their  most  acute,  convey  decided  pleasure ;  while  ex- 
perience itself,  in  the  cockpit  of  life,  can  torture  and  slay. 
What,  then,  is  the  object,  what  the  method,  of  an 
art,  and  what  the  source  of  its  power  ?  The  whole  se- 
cret is  that  no  art  does  "compete  with  life."  Man's 
one  method,  whether  he  reasons  or  creates,  is  to  half- 
shut  his  eyes  against  the  dazzle  and  confusion  of  reality. 
The  arts,  like  arithmetic  and  geometry,  turn  away  their 
eyes  from  the  gross,  coloured  and  mobile  nature  at  our 
feet,  and  regard  instead  a  certain  figmentary  abstraction. 

348 


A   HUMBLE   REMONSTRANCE 

Geometry  will  tell  us  of  a  circle,  a  thing  never  seen  in 
nature ;  asked  about  a  green  circle  or  an  iron  circle,  it 
lays  its  hand  upon  its  mouth.  So  with  the  arts.  Paint- 
ing, ruefully  comparing  sunshine  and  flake-white,  gives 
up  truth  of  colour,  as  it  had  already  given  up  relief  and 
movement;  and  instead  of  vying  with  nature,  arranges 
a  scheme  of  harmonious  tints.  Literature,  above  all  in 
its  most  typical  mood,  the  mood  of  narrative,  similarly 
flees  the  direct  challenge  and  pursues  instead  an  inde- 
pendent and  creative  aim.  So  far  as  it  imitates  at  all,  it 
imitates  not  life  but  speech :  not  the  facts  of  human  des- 
tiny, but  the  emphasis  and  the  suppressions  with  which 
the  human  actor  tells  of  them.  The  real  art  that  dealt 
with  life  directly  was  that  of  the  first  men  who  told 
their  stories  round  the  savage  camp-fire.  Our  art  is 
occupied,  and  bound  to  be  occupied,  not  so  much  in 
making  stories  true  as  in  making  them  typical;  not  so 
much  in  capturing  the  lineaments  of  each  fact,  as  in 
marshalling  all  of  them  towards  a  common  end.  For  the 
welter  of  impressions,  all  forcible  but  all  discreet,  which 
life  presents,  it  substitutes  a  certain  artificial  series  of  im- 
pressions, all  indeed  most  feebly  represented,  but  all  aim- 
ing at  the  same  effect,  all  eloquent  of  the  same  idea,  all 
chiming  together  like  consonant  notes  in  music  or  like 
the  graduated  tints  in  a  good  picture.  From  all  its  chap- 
ters, from  all  its  pages,  from  all  its  sentences,  the  well- 
written  novel  echoes  and  re-echoes  its  one  creative  and 
controlling  thought;  to  this  must  every  incident  and 
character  contribute ;  the  style  must  have  been  pitched  in 
unison  with  this ;  and  if  there  is  anywhere  a  word  that 
looks  another  way,  the  book  would  be  stronger,  clearer, 
and  (I  had  almost  said)  fuller  without  it.     Life  is  mon- 

349 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

strous,  infinite,  illogical,  abrupt  and  poignant;  a  work  of 
art,  in  comparison,  is  neat,  finite,  self-contained,  rational, 
flowing  and  emasculate.  Life  imposes  by  brute  energy, 
like  inarticulate  thunder;  art  catches  the  ear,  among  the 
far  louder  noises  of  experience,  like  an  air  artificially  made 
by  a  discreet  musician.  A  proposition  of  geometry  does 
not  compete  with  life;  and  a  proposition  of  geometry  is 
a  fair  and  luminous  parallel  for  a  work  of  art.  Both  are 
reasonable,  both  untrue  to  the  crude  fact;  both  inhere 
in  nature,  neither  represents  it.  The  novel,  which  is  a 
work  of  art,  exists,  not  by  its  resemblances  to  life,  which 
are  forced  and  material,  as  a  shoe  must  still  consist  of 
leather,  but  by  its  immeasurable  difference  from  life, 
which  is  designed  and  significant,  and  is  both  the 
method  and  the  meaning  of  the  work. 

The  life  of  man  is  not  the  subject  of  novels,  but  the 
inexhaustible  magazine  from  which  subjects  are  to  be 
selected ;  the  name  of  these  is  legion ;  and  with  each 
new  subject  —  for  here  again  I  must  differ  by  the  whole 
width  of  heaven  from  Mr.  James  —  the  true  artist  will 
vary  his  method  and  change  the  point  of  attack.  That 
which  was  in  one  case  an  excellence,  will  become  a  de- 
fect in  another;  what  was  the  making  of  one  book,  will 
in  the  next  be  impertinent  or  dull.  First  each  novel, 
and  then  each  class  of  novels,  exists  by  and  for  itself. 
I  will  take,  for  instance,  three  main  classes,  which  are 
fairly  distinct :  first,  the  novel  of  adventure,  which  appeals 
to  certain  almost  sensual  and  quite  illogical  tendencies 
in  man ;  second,  the  novel  of  character,  which  appeals 
to  our  intellectual  appreciation  of  man's  foibles  and 
mingled  and  inconstant  motives;  and  third,  the  dra- 
matic novel,  which  deals  with  the  same  stuff  as  the 

350 


A   HUMBLE  REMONSTRANCE 

serious  theatre,  and  appeals  to  our  emotional  nature  and 
moral  judgment. 

And  first  for  the  novel  of  adventure.  Mr.  James  re- 
fers, with  singular  generosity  of  praise,  to  a  little  book 
about  a  quest  for  hidden  treasure ;  but  he  lets  fall,  by 
the  way,  some  rather  startling  words.  In  this  book  he 
misses  what  he  calls  the  "immense  luxury"  of  being 
able  to  quarrel  with  his  author.  The  luxury,  to  most  of 
us,  is  to  lay  by  our  judgment,  to  be  submerged  by  the 
tale  as  by  a  billow,  and  only  to  awake,  and  begin  to 
distinguish  and  find  fault,  when  the  piece  is  over  and 
the  volume  laid  aside.  Still  more  remarkable  is  Mr. 
James's  reason.  He  cannot  criticise  the  author,  as  he 
goes,  "because,"  says  he,  comparing  it  with  another 
work,  "  I  have  been  a  child,  hut  I  have  never  been  on  a 
quest  for  buried  treasure/'  Here  is,  indeed,  a  wilful 
paradox ;  for  if  he  has  never  been  on  a  quest  for  buried 
treasure,  it  can  be  demonstrated  that  he  has  never  been 
a  child.  There  never  was  a  child  (unless  Master  James) 
but  has  hunted  gold,  and  been  a  pirate,  and  a  military 
commander,  and  a  bandit  of  the  mountains;  but  has 
fought,  and  suffered  shipwreck  and  prison,  and  imbrued 
its  little  hands  in  gore,  and  gallantly  retrieved  the  lost 
battle,  and  triumphantly  protected  innocence  and  beauty. 
Elsewhere  in  his  essay  Mr.  James  has  protested  with 
excellent  reason  against  too  narrow  a  conception  of  ex- 
perience; for  the  born  artist,  he  contends,  the  "faintest 
hints  of  life  "  are  converted  into  revelations ;  and  it  will 
be  found  true,  I  believe,  in  a  majority  of  cases,  that  the 
artist  writes  with  more  gusto  and  effect  of  those  things 
which  he  has  only  wished  to  do,  than  of  those  which 
he  has  done.     Desire  is  a  wonderful  telescope,  and  Pis- 

351 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

gah  the  best  observatory.  Now,  while  it  is  true  that 
neither  Mr.  James  nor  the  author  of  the  work  in  question 
has  ever,  in  the  fleshly  sense,  gone  questing  after  gold, 
it  is  probable  that  both  have  ardently  desired  and  fondly 
imagined  the  details  of  such  a  life  in  youthful  day- 
dreams ;  and  the  author,  counting  upon  that,  and  well 
aware  (cunning  and  low-minded  man!)  that  this  class 
of  interest,  having  been  frequently  treated,  finds  a 
readily  accessible  and  beaten  road  to  the  sympathies  of 
the  reader,  addressed  himself  throughout  to  the  build- 
ing up  and  circumstantiation  of  this  boyish  dream. 
Character  to  the  boy  is  a  sealed  book ;  for  him,  a  pirate 
is  a  beard,  a  pair  of  wide  trousers  and  a  liberal  com- 
plement of  pistols.  The  author,  for  the  sake  of  cir- 
cumstantiation and  because  he  was  himself  more  or 
less  grown  up,  admitted  character,  within  certain  limits, 
into  his  design;  but  only  within  certain  limits.  Had 
the  same  puppets  figured  in  a  scheme  of  another  sort, 
they  had  been  drawn  to  very  different  purpose ;  for  in 
this  elementary  novel  of  adventure,  the  characters  need 
to  be  presented  with  but  one  class  of  qualities  —  the 
warlike  and  formidable.  So  as  they  appear  insidious  in 
deceit  and  fatal  in  the  combat,  they  have  served  their 
end.  Danger  is  the  matter  with  which  this  class  of 
novel  deals ;  fear,  the  passion  with  which  it  idly  trifles ; 
and  the  characters  are  portrayed  only  so  far  as  they 
realise  the  sense  of  danger  and  provoke  the  sympathy 
of  fear.  To  add  more  traits,  to  be  too  clever,  to  start 
the  hare  of  moral  or  intellectual  interest  while  we  are 
running  the  fox  of  material  interest,  is  not  to  enrich  but 
to  stultify  your  tale.  The  stupid  reader  will  only  be 
offended,  and  the  clever  reader  lose  the  scent. 

352 


A   HUMBLE   REMONSTRANCE 

The  novel  of  character  has  this  difference  from  all  oth- 
ers :  that  it  requires  no  coherency  of  plot,  and  for  this 
reason,  as  in  the  case  of  Gil  Bias,  it  is  sometimes  called 
the  novel  of  adventure.  It  turns  on  the  humours  of  the 
persons  represented;  these  are,  to  be  sure,  embodied  in 
incidents,  but  the  incidents  themselves,  being  tributary, 
need  not  march  in  a  progression;  and  the  characters 
may  be  statically  shown.  As  they  enter,  so  they  may  go 
out ;  they  must  be  consistent,  but  they  need  not  grow. 
Here  Mr.  James  will  recognise  the  note  of  much  of  his 
own  work :  he  treats,  for  the  most  part,  the  statics  of 
character,  studying  it  at  rest  or  only  gently  moved ;  and, 
with  his  usual  delicate  and  just  artistic  instinct,  he 
avoids  those  stronger  passions  which  would  deform  the 
attitudes  he  loves  to  study,  and  change  his  sitters  from 
the  humourists  of  ordinary  life  to  the  brute  forces  and 
bare  types  of  more  emotional  moments.  In  his  recent 
Author  of  Beltraffio,  so  just  in  conception,  so  nimble 
and  neat  in  workmanship,  strong  passion  is  indeed  em- 
ployed ;  but  observe  that  it  is  not  displayed.  Even  in 
the  heroine  the  working  of  the  passion  is  suppressed ; 
and  the  great  struggle,  the  true  tragedy,  the  scene-a- 
faire,  passes  unseen  behind  the  panels  of  a  locked  door. 
The  delectable  invention  of  the  young  visitor  is  intro- 
duced, consciously  or  not,  to  this  end :  that  Mr.  James, 
true  to  his  method,  might  avoid  the  scene  of  passion. 
I  trust  no  reader  will  suppose  me  guilty  of  undervalu- 
ing this  little  masterpiece.  I  mean  merely  that  it  be- 
longs to  one  marked  class  of  novel,  and  that  it  would 
have  been  very  differently  conceived  and  treated  had  it 
belonged  to  that  other  marked  class,  of  which  I  now 
proceed  to  speak. 

353 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

I  take  pleasure  in  calling  the  dramatic  novel  by  that 
name,  because  it  enables  me  to  point  out  by  the  way  a 
strange  and  peculiarly  English  misconception.  It  is 
sometimes  supposed  that  the  drama  consists  of  inci- 
dent. It  consists  of  passion,  which  gives  the  actor  his 
opportunity;  and  that  passion  must  progressively  in- 
crease, or  the  actor,  as  the  piece  proceeded,  would  be 
unable  to  carry  the  audience  from  a  lower  to  a  higher 
pitch  of  interest  and  emotion.  A  good  serious  play 
must  therefore  be  founded  on  one  of  the  passionate 
cruces  of  life,  where  duty  and  inclination  come  nobly 
to  the  grapple ;  and  the  same  is  true  of  what  I  call,  for 
that  reason,  the  dramatic  novel.  I  will  instance  a  few 
worthy  specimens,  all  of  our  own  day  and  language; 
Meredith's  Rhoda  Fleming,  that  wonderful  and  painful 
book,  long  out  of  print, x  and  hunted  for  at  book-stalls 
like  an  Aldine ;  Hardy's  Pair  of  Blue  Eyes;  and  two  of 
Charles  Reade's,  Griffith  Gaunt  and  The  Double  Mar- 
riage, originally  called  White  Lies,  and  founded  (by  an 
an  accident  quaintly  favourable  to  my  nomenclature) 
on  a  play  by  Maquet,  the  partner  of  the  great  Dumas. 
In  this  kind  of  novel  the  closed  door  of  The  Author  of 
Beltraffio  must  be  broken  open;  passion  must  appear 
upon  the  scene  and  utter  its  last  word ;  passion  is  the 
be-all  and  the  end-all,  the  plot  and  the  solution,  the 
protagonist  and  the  deus  ex  machina  in  one.  The  char- 
acters may  come  anyhow  upon  the  stage:  we  do  not 
care ;  the  point  is,  that,  before  they  leave  it,  they  shall 
become  transfigured  and  raised  out  of  themselves  by 
passion.  It  may  be  part  of  the  design  to  draw  them 
with  detail ;  to  depict  a  full-length  character,  and  then 

1  Now  no  longer  so,  thank  Heaven ! 

354 


A   HUMBLE   REMONSTRANCE 

behold  it  melt  and  change  in  the  furnace  of  emotion. 
But  there  is  no  obligation  of  the  sort;  nice  portraiture 
is  not  required ;  and  we  are  content  to  accept  mere  ab- 
stract types,  so  they  be  strongly  and  sincerely  moved. 
A  novel  of  this  class  may  be  even  great,  and  yet  con- 
tain no  individual  figure;  it  may  be  great,  because  it 
displays  the  workings  of  the  perturbed  heart  and  the 
impersonal  utterance  of  passion;  and  with  an  artist  of 
the  second  class  it  is,  indeed,  even  more  likely  to  be 
great,  when  the  issue  has  thus  been  narrowed  and  the 
whole  force  of  the  writer's  mind  directed  to  passion 
alone.  Cleverness  again,  which  has  its  fair  field  in  the 
novel  of  character,  is  debarred  all  entry  upon  this  more 
solemn  theatre.  A  far-fetched  motive,  an  ingenious 
evasion  of  the  issue,  a  witty  instead  of  a  passionate 
turn,  offend  us  like  an  insincerity.  All  should  be  plain, 
all  straightforward  to  the  end.  Hence  it  is  that,  in 
Rboda  Fleming,  Mrs.  Lovel  raises  such  resentment  in 
the  reader;  her  motives  are  too  flimsy,  her  ways  are 
too  equivocal,  for  the  weight  and  strength  of  her  sur- 
roundings. Hence  the  hot  indignation  of  the  reader 
when  Balzac,  after  having  begun  the  Duchesse  de  Lan- 
geais  in  terms  of  strong  if  somewhat  swollen  passion, 
cuts  the  knot  by  the  derangement  of  the  hero's  clock. 
Such  personages  and  incidents  belong  to  the  novel  of 
character ;  they  are  out  of  place  in  the  high  society  of 
the  passions;  when  the  passions  are  introduced  in  art 
at  their  full  height,  we  look  to  see  them,  not  baffled  and 
impotently  striving,  as  in  life,  but  towering  above  cir- 
cumstance and  acting  substitutes  for  fate. 

And  here  I  can  imagine  Mr.  James,  with  his  lucid 
sense,  to  intervene.     To  much  of  what  I  have  said  he 

355 


MEMORIES  AND   PORTRAITS 

would  apparently  demur;  in  much  he  would,  some- 
what impatiently,  acquiesce.  It  may  be  true;  but  it  is 
not  what  he  desired  to  say  or  to  hear  said.  He  spoke 
of  the  finished  picture  and  its  worth  when  done ;  I,  of 
the  brushes,  the  palette,  and  the  north  light.  He  ut- 
tered his  views  in  the  tone  and  for  the  ear  of  good 
society ;  I,  with  the  emphasis  and  technicalities  of  the 
obtrusive  student.  But  the  point,  I  may  reply,  is  not 
merely  to  amuse  the  public,  but  to  offer  helpful  advice 
to  the  young  writer.  And  the  young  writer  will  not  so 
much  be  helped  by  genial  pictures  of  what  an  art  may 
aspire  to  at  its  highest,  as  by  a  true  idea  of  what  it  must 
be  on  the  lowest  terms.  The  best  that  we  can  say  to 
him  is  this :  Let  him  choose  a  motive,  whether  of  char- 
acter or  passion;  carefully  construct  his  plot  so  that 
every  incident  is  an  illustration  of  the  motive,  and  every 
property  employed  shall  bear  to  it  a  near  relation  of  con- 
gruity  or  contrast;  avoid  a  sub-plot,  unless,  as  some- 
times in  Shakespeare,  the  sub-plot  be  a  reversion  or 
complement  of  the  main  intrigue;  suffer  not  his  style 
to  flag  below  the  level  of  the  argument ;  pitch  the  key 
of  conversation,  not  with  any  thought  of  how  men  talk 
in  parlours,  but  with  a  single  eye  to  the  degree  of  pas- 
sion he  may  be  called  on  to  express ;  and  allow  neither 
himself  in  the  narrative  nor  any  character  in  the  course 
of  the  dialogue,  to  utter  one  sentence  that  is  not  part 
and  parcel  of  the  business  of  the  story  or  the  discussion 
of  the  problem  involved.  Let  him  not  regret  if  this 
shortens  his  book ;  it  will  be  better  so ;  for  to  add  irrele- 
vant matter  is  not  to  lengthen  but  to  bury.  Let  him 
not  mind  if  he  miss  a  thousand  qualities,  so  that  he 
keeps  unflaggingly  in  pursuit  of  the  one  he  has  chosen. 

356 


A   HUMBLE   REMONSTRANCE 

Let  him  not  care  particularly  if  he  miss  the  tone  of 
conversation,  the  pungent  material  detail  of  the  day'* 
manners,  the  reproduction  of  the  atmosphere  and  the 
environment.  These  elements  are  not  essential :  a  novel 
may  be  excellent,  and  yet  have  none  of  them ;  a  passion 
or  a  character  is  so  much  the  better  depicted  as  it  rises 
clearer  from  material  circumstance.  In  this  age  of  the 
particular,  let  him  remember  the  ages  of  the  abstract, 
the  great  books  of  the  past,  the  brave  men  that  lived 
before  Shakespeare  and  before  Balzac.  And  as  the  root 
of  the  whole  matter,  let  him  bear  in  mind  that  his  novel 
is  not  a  transcript  of  life,  to  be  judged  by  its  exactitude ; 
but  a  simplification  of  some  side  or  point  of  life,  to 
stand  or  fall  by  its  significant  simplicity.  For  although, 
in  great  men,  working  upon  great  motives,  what  we 
observe  and  admire  is  often  their  complexity,  yet  under- 
neath appearances  the  truth  remains  unchanged:  that 
simplification  was  their  method,  and  that  simplicity  is 
their  excellence. 


Since  the  above  was  written  another  novelist  has  en- 
tered repeatedly  the  lists  of  theory :  one  well  worthy  of 
mention,  Mr.  W.  D.  Howells;  and  none  ever  couched 
a  lance  with  narrower  convictions.  His  own  work  and 
those  of  his  pupils  and  masters  singly  occupy  his  mind; 
he  is  the  bondslave,  the  zealot  of  his  school ;  he  dreams 
of  an  advance  in  art  like  what  there  is  in  science ;  he 
thinks  of  past  things  as  radically  dead ;  he  thinks  a  form 
can  be  outlived :  a  strange  immersion  in  his  own  history ; 
a  strange  forgetfulness  of  the  history  of  the  race !  Mean- 
while, by  a  glance  at  his  own  works  (could  he  see  them 

357 


MEMORIES   AND   PORTRAITS 

with  the  eager  eyes  of  his  readers)  much  of  this  illusion 
would  be  dispelled.  For  while  he  holds  all  the  poor 
little  orthodoxies  of  the  day — no  poorer  and  no  smaller 
than  those  of  yesterday  or  to-morrow,  poor  and  small, 
indeed,  only  so  far  as  they  are  exclusive  —  the  living 
quality  of  much  that  he  has  done  is  of  a  contrary,  I  had 
almost  said  of  a  heretical,  complexion.  A  man,  as  I 
read  him,  of  an  originally  strong  romantic  bent  —  a  cer- 
tain glow  of  romance  still  resides  in  many  of  his  books, 
and  lends  them  their  distinction.  As  by  accident  he 
runs  out  and  revels  in  the  exceptional;  and  it  is  then, 
as  often  as  not,  that  his  reader  rejoices — justly,  as  I 
contend.  For  in  all  this  excessive  eagerness  to  be  cen- 
trally human,  is  there  not  one  central  human  thing  that 
Mr.  Howells  is  too  often  tempted  to  neglect:  I  mean 
himself?  A  poet,  a  finished  artist,  a  man  in  love  with 
the  appearances  of  life,  a  cunning  reader  of  the  mind, 
he  has  other  passions  and  aspirations  than  those  he  loves 
to  draw.  And  why  should  he  suppress  himself  and  do 
such  reverence  to  the  Lemuel  Barkers  ?  The  obvious  is 
not  of  necessity  the  normal ;  fashion  rules  and  deforms ; 
the  majority  fall  tamely  into  the  contemporary  shape, 
and  thus  attain,  in  the  eyes  of  the  true  observer,  only  a 
higher  power  of  insignificance ;  and  the  danger  is  lest, 
in  seeking  to  draw  the  normal,  a  man  should  draw  the 
null,  and  write  the  novel  of  society  instead  of  the  ro- 
mance of  man. 


358 


PKstto 


Fa  j 

V.  13 


